An Elephantine challenge!

I started off this challenge card by popping over to Mo's Digital Challenge Blog, where the theme was shades of grey. I have this gorgeous digi of her's called Monkey Hug, which was perfect to be coloured grey. From there it snowballed, I remembered a couple of challenges were asking for baby themes and the elephant is hugging a baby monkey. Once I started I was whizzing around the various blogs trying to see what other challenges I could incorporate into the card.

So here we have it, my entry for:-

Creative Card Crew - Punch It - Punched and embossed border - I did enter an earlier card for this same challenge, but the rules said it was okay to enter more than once as long as it was a different project. 

Raise The Bar - Old - In fact the older the better. I have had the DCWV Old Worlde Stack for several years, I used that for the nestie mat and the punched border; and I have had the Basic Grey ambrosia paper for a long time also and not used it, and it forms the base of my card; which brings me to 

Basic Grey - Animals, and must have a Basic Grey element to the card. See above. I ran the paper
through my printer before using it and printed onto it the words 'Big Hugs are the best' in the corner. 

Simon Says - New Baby which could be a baby animal if desired and the monkey looks like a baby to me. 

Stamp With Fun - Also a baby. Clearly from the gorgeous DT cards here they also used baby animals for some.

FINALLY 

Spoonful of Sugar - Freestyle....... lovely can use anything you like. 

PHEW. That was some challenge. Hope you like it.

The elephant I started to colour with prismas, but for some reason it just didn't want to blend so I resorted to a Memento inkpad called London Fog and painted the elephant in with that instead. I dusted around the image with a grey/beige chalk before matting it up with nesties onto some DCWV paper. No idea where the floral paper came from, just found it unloved in the bottom of a pile of 8x8 papers. I finished it off with a nice corner peel off, and a small elephant charm.

Lin

New Sugar Nellie Stamp

I received three new Sugar Nellie stamps this morning courtesy of a subscription to Craft Stamper magazine. Well it would have been rude not to as they were practically giving away the magazine if you took the cost of the stamps off. Anyhow I decided to put one of them to good use and put it on a card for the latest Sugar Bowl Challenge.

I followed their sketch below, but flipped it to the right.

The added requirement was distressing. All of the papers are Basic Grey and apart from the bottom one are all from the Indian Summer pack.

The stamp is one of the Gorjuss Girls and is called Bear Hug. I coloured her, as usual with prismas and OMS.
 
The flowers are from my stash, the inners hair clips that I separated and used to simulate roses. The leaves are a punch a friend lent me. Nearly broke my wrist punching them all out, but there should be enough there to do me for a while yet. I do wish the yummy roses I have my eye on at Wild Orchid would come back into stock.

Lin

A plethora of challenges

Today I sent myself nearly mad with the logistics of trying to get my card to fit the respective challenges of six seperate blogs. I know that is chicken feed to some of you experience bloggers and challenge makers but to my ME fuddled brain it's like trying to plough through old discarded engine oil with my welly boots on back to front!

I hope my card meets the challenges of the following sites

Sketch Saturday - Sketch
Creative Card Crew - Punch It
Simons Says - Punch It
Papertake Weekly - Mainly Pink
Flutterby Wednesday - Any Fairy or Butterfly stamp and Embossing
Cute Card Thursday - Any Fairy Stamp

I followed the sketch below from Sketch Saturday.
As requested by Flutterby Wednesday my card includes a fairy and embossing. The back layer is Core'dinations whitewash run through the BS with a texture plate and sanded off to reveal the pink beneath. The card is mainly pink as requested by Papertake Weekly. All the various matting papers come from Kanban's Seasons Spring collection, including the flower. Which was punched as required by Creative Card Crew and Simons Says. The back layer is also punched with a Cosmos Punch as is the small border on the right hand edge of the card. And of course, because it has a fairy, coloured with my polychromos and OMS it meets the Cute Card Thursday challenge.

I need to go and lie down in a darkened room now cos my head hurts, lol

Don't forget to go and check out these gorgeous blogs and the DT blogs linked to them.

Lin

Stampavie Birthday Boy

Today I completed my first ever easel card. I feel like such a dinosaur. How I didn't spot this trend is beyond me. I must have had my eyes shut for the last couple of months! Maybe it's because before Christmas I hardly came near my own, nor anyone else's blog being busy with Christmas prep!

Anyhow although an easel card was last week's Challenge theme for Stampavie and More I thought I would incorporate the style into this week's challenge which was a boy birthday card. Not sure if this means a card for a boy, or a card with a boy on it........ so mine, hopefully, covers both ideas.

I actually found this quite hard...... choosing papers that would co-ordinate at an odd angle, whilst not swamping the main focal point. Hopefully, now I have done one, it will get easier as this style of card is very attractive and gives a bigger area to decorate. Maybe I picked the wrong theme for my first one as boy is it hard doing a boy card! No flowers, no bows, no frilly bits. Why can't boys be more like us!

Anyhow enough of my drivel.

I chose a paper from Kanban's seasons' collection, and to go with it another sheet of the WRMK's Tiffany pad, well I had it out for the last card I did and the colour went really well. I put it through the BS with a leaves texture plate to tone in with the Kanban paper.The ribbon is from my stash and the birthday label and little tree which holds the card upright were also from Kanban's Seasons' collection.

The little frog is a button I thought went great with the stamp. He is called Froggy Gift from High Hopes and reminds me of a prank my neighbours' (now grown up) sons played on me when they were much younger, hiding three frogs in a watering can, on account of the fact I made the mistake of telling them how they terrified me! BOYS!!! Hideous little creatures, lol. I can still see their innocent little faces pretending like they didn't know how the frogs got there. Anyhow coloured with prismas and OMS, and matted with nesties. What did we ever do before nesties?

I included an extra pic of the front as that was another problem I found with this style, photographing it so it looked in proportion and not too dark.

Lin

Mo's Challenge 14

Hi This is my entry for Mo's Challenge Blog 14. There is a sketch to follow, which I flipped as shown, plus of course one of Mo's gorgeous digi stamps. The latter is not difficult as there are hundreds to choose from. In fact I had been a good girl and not bought a thing since the beginning of December, but I spotted a couple of new images I didn't have, popped on over to her website and I was doomed from that second as I ended up buying 9 new images. Four of them I had longed for since they were released, but you know how it is, Christmas was coming and craft spending had to take a backseat! PUH!! So now I made up for it. However, for this card I used one of the very first digis I bought from Mo's site. She is called 'Rae with Journal' and is from a set 'Dani and Friends', which I believe, for you diehard rubber and acrylic fans, have recently been released with Stampavie in clear photopolymer stamps too.
So to my desgin. I used the gorgeous WRKM Tiffany Paper pad, and picked a particularly large and garish pattern as the background. Sometimes I pick out a paper and then colour accordingly, and sometimes I colour and then pick out the paper. This time I had already coloured, and as luck would have it, the right colours were in this sheet of paper, and even better it had toning plain sheets for the mats.
Wouldn't you know it, I meant to run the mats through with a Bug embossing folder and completely forgot! Call it an age thing. Who knows, it might have ended up looking too busy. The flowers are in fact three lovely green buttons from Autumn Leaves, and on top I stuck three gems which I coloured orange with a marker pen.

The stamp is coloured with chalks, Pitt Pastel pencils. I don't have many colours so was a bit limited for choice. Note to self, must look out for bargain bigger pack. The tiny butterfly was coloured with Sakura Stardust pens. It was difficult blending the chalks and I used Q-tips but there must be a better method out there, as they are quite large for small areas. If anyone knows of anything better, stick a comment under here please.....

Hope you like it.

Lin

Fluttering By

This is my entry for the Flutter By Wednesday Challenge 92 and I have combined it with Papertake Weekly 32.

The sketch comes from Papertake Weekly as follows:- Flutter By Wednesday was an open challenge as long as a butterfly, fairy or angel were included in the project.

I have had this gorgeous new stamp from Graphicus for a while now and nowhere to use it. It's very large almost 6" square and so pretty much covers a standard card. I stamped it with versafine and embossed with black sparkle powder. Unfortunately the camera has not captured the lovely sparkle of the black areas of the butterfly. I coloured it with Inktense watercolour pencils. The butterfly has curled beautifully due to the watercolouring and looks like it is fluttering off the card.

I used a 10x7 card and chopped it down to 7" square, covered it in some paper that was a freebie with Creative Cardmaking Magazine and also the three mats on top came from the same issue. Before I assembled it I realised that I didn't like the colour of the bottom layer of paper so I tinted it with Memento Inkpads and also used the same inkpads, different colour, to edge the top three mats and the central mat, which I had previously run through the Big Shot with a texture plate of butterflies.
The paper ribbon trim comes from K&Co's Que Sera range, and the three small butterflies are chopped from a length of butterfly ribbon. I created the sentiment on my pc and cut it out with a small nestie label.
After all the snow it's nice to think that spring is around the corner and we might soon be seeing butterflies for real, although not this size I hope!

I'm off now for a trawl around the Flutter By designers to see if I can locate the gorgeous blog candy they have on offer.

Lin

Birthday Card

This is my entry for Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge Blog, the theme of which is birthday. How lucky was that. I had to make a card for my Daughter's birthday which is today, 12th Jan, and as she was born on Thursday, all along I had planned to use Mo's gorgeous digi image of Thursday's Child. I haven't posted the card before as occasionally she reads my blog and I wouldn't want her seeing the card before I have given it to her, but now it's sitting downstairs on display I am free to post it.

The paper is designed by Karen Neuburger from Paper Adventures. I just love her designs, soft and whispy and very delicate. The fact it was shades of my Daughter's favourite colour of purple was an added bonus.

I didn't want to put too much on and certainly no mat behind the little girl as the intention was for her to look like she walking along a road/path. That lovely purple mesh ribbon was perfect for a path. A couple of flowers which I tinted the right shade, a butterfly, a porcelain dragonfly and a birthday sentiment and it was complete. As usual the image was coloured with prismas and OMS.

This little girl reminds me of my Daughter when she was that age, although she would have been more likely to have her favourite soft toy, freckles the dog, on her back and been clutching a hard plastic T.Rex dinosaur, as she left home. She did run away once, it was the scariest time of my life, until she re-appeared a couple of hours later crying cos she didn't have the bus fare to 'get to Nanny's'.

Today there is thick snow on the ground, just like the day she was born and unusual for the UK, and she is exactly the age I was when I had her, making her exactly half my age. Boy how the years do fly.

Happy Birthday Darling

Mum

Triple Combination Challenge

This is my interpretation of a combination of three different challenges.

Firstly the sketch comes from Stamp Something, the second challenge is from Colour Create, where the challenge is to use lemon and lime for the colours and finally over at ABC Challenge L is for ..... layering.

The main card is DCWV, and there is a layer on top of K&Co daisy paper. The strips down the side are from Craft Creations and a lemon grow grain ribbon has been layered on top of them and stapled into place. I found it really odd stapling things to my card, but it's apparently trendy, although maybe not the way I did it. The top two mats are Basic Grey, which I have run through the BS with a Bug folder. The flowers are cut using a retro flower punch from the same paper as the strips are from, I glittered the edges of the petals and layered them up with a brad at the centre which added to the 'layering' element required by ABC.

The stamp is from Wild Rose Studios, and I thought she fitted with the overall colour and flower idea of the card. I coloured her in with prismas and OMS.

I liked the colour scheme, very uplifting during the long, dark, cold days of Winter.

Lin

Sugar Bowl Challenge

Here is my entry for the current Sugar Bowl Challenge.

I loved making this one, there was some precision required, layering correctly, and a bit of messy, the grungepaper flowers. It had to follow the sketch below and include something 'new'.

I started off with the SN stamp Daisy. This little girl is just so sweet. I coloured her with prismas and OMS and all the flowers were coloured with Sakura stardust pens. I cut her out with a nestie shape and did a matching layer in the same card as the main body of the card. I chalked round her as the white was very harsh once I started putting the card together.

The main card is DCWV and the lovely papers are K&Co, Que Sera I think! The particular sheet I used had large bands of different colours/patterns across it and it seemed ideal.

The grungepaper flowers were my 'new' element. New as in brand new I just made them and also new as in only just got the grungepaper and never used it before. It colours like a dream and is easy to shape. These were punched out with a retro flower punch, and then coloured with Worn Lipstick distress ink. I then spritzed some glimmer mists over the top and when it had all dried I overstamped with Black Soot and a scrolly stamp. Finally I took apart a gorgeous paper rose which had a large flower and several buds and split them between the two flowers, including the leaves.

Hope you like it. The light conditions are not the best due to the snow outside and the overcast skies so it has photographed darker than it really looks.

Lin

And she's off.........

Day one of my resolution and my second post!

Over at Cupcake Craft Challenges the current challenge is for a new baby card.

I made this card for my Niece's friend. They had already chosen the baby's name as they knew the sex in advance.

This one gave me such a headache. I worked out that I could get the words Welcome and Lucy around the edge of this card providing I put two extras stitched areas between the Welcome and the Lucy. I must have a) cut out the scalloped circle, b) embossed the oval frames that the letters and stitching sits in c) embossed the name and the welcome word and d) pricked most of the pattern for the stitching about 5 times, each time because the embossing was being done back to front and I had to leave those extra gaps I just kept getting it wrong. I was on the point of throwing it all out the window. The end result I thought was nice so I am glad I persevered. That decoupage was a complete so and so to cut out as well. It doesn't show too well here but the backing paper is like an embossed and glittered fabric, very tactile and pretty.

I enjoy stitching. Must incorporate it more into my current crafting trend, although it is a lot more time consuming. Luckily this one is a very easy pattern to stitch.

Lin

New Year's Resolution 'I must blog regularly'

New Year, new me. Well that's my intention today, of course by the end of next week it could be different.

I am determined though to try and maintain my blog a lot better than I have been doing. I let Christmas card making and Christmas present making get on top of me and haven't posted in ages.

To make up for it I am going to post a few cards I made at the end of last year and also the first two of 2010.

The first card was made for a forum member over on CraftTelly.com's birthday.
The background paper is Basic Grey from the Lemonade collection. I overlayed two ribbons to give the effect I was after and the flowers are prima. The mat behind the image is a metallic foil embossed with a cuttlebug folder and cut out with a label nestie. The image itself is from Incy Wincy and she is called Chelsea and I coloured her with prismas/OMS.

The next pic was also for a CT.com member's birthday and the background paper is from the Tiffany collection of WRMK. The pattern is a Martha Stewart Deep Edger Punch. The image is from my favourite deisner Mo Manning and is called Patience. Again coloured with prismas and OMS.

Now to my first card for this decade. Well it sounded smarter than 'this year'.


The background here I created from a paper in my stash, which i scanned in and then embossed using my graphics program's settings. This turned the paper grey and I added colour to it afterwards. I confess to having got the idea from the lovely Sharon Duncan who creates a range of cds called 'Embossibilities'. This one I have not got the settings quite right, I should have scanned at a better resolution to start with as the end product to my mind looks slightly wishy washy. The papers on the mats are a combination of K&Co and MyMind'sEye. The stamp is a gorgeous one called Vogue Silhouette dress, which I stamped with Distress Ink called peeled paint, dragging the colour out from the edge and away from the image with a paintbrush. I then stamped the image again onto acetate which I had previously backed with double sided self adhesive film, and then glittered with some ultra fine glitterm and matted it onto the previously stamped image. I did try using plain glue but I either had it too thick, and it just didn't want to dry under the glitter or too thin and the glitter looked patchy. Suffice to say my whole upstairs now looks like it has been in a battle with the Glitter Fairy and lost! I even have glitter on my birthday flower boquet's leaves!

The little message mat was a promise I made myself. I discovered an entire container of die cuts which have never seen the light of day. I promised myself that I would try to use at least one of them on all future cards until they are gone or I am sick of the sight of them. I was successful here and used two! The next card, however, none of them looked right so none got used up here.

The final card is for a friend's birthday.
The whole card is made from items from Graphicus, apart from the flower and small gem centre. The background is from the pack I got when I joined their Guild. A whole slew of the lushest papers you could wish for. The gorgeous lady is from a matching peacock stamp sheet, as are the small peacocks.

I stamped the lady with versafine black and let her dry. Then I went over the black areas of her (apart from her hair) with an opalite inkpad. These look good on dark card, but it does depend on where the light is coming from as to whether or not you get the true beauty of them. I have included a smaller pic, taken at an angle, which I hope shows it as green. I also edged the mat I stamped onto with black ink and also the opalite green. I then used Inktense pencils to colour the rest of her in.

The peacocks were from the same stamp sheet, and I stamped them onto shrink plastic, and the one with his feathers on display I coloured in with Sakura Stardust pens.

Sorry for length of post.