Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 36

Good Morning!!  We're having very special challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers for the next 4 weeks and its something a little bit different and a lot of fun!  We've also managed to persuade the sponsors or their representative to join in the fun :) We'd like to see your LATEST OR GREATEST creation so anything you like or a particular favourite AND here's the important bit, we'd also like to see your FIRST or the OLDEST one you have a photo of!  I can see you cringing and thinking oooooh nooooo mine's really baaaad!  Don't worry, we ALL started somewhere and I hope you can see from the samples that everybody was new once and with a bit of practice you can get better and you'll also see how much you've already got better by digging out your first efforts! The Rules: You can enter up to 3 times but each must contain a picture of one of your first designs and must be different techniques or items e.g. first card, first stamped card, first scrapbook page, first tag etc.  They must also be separate posts. You can enter your latest creations or your favourites previously published alongside your old design.  You can enter in as many other challenges as you wish but many challenges do not accept older creations so just be mindful of that. Please link back to Crafty Cardmakers  and mention them in your post. The challenge runs for 4 weeks from 13th Dec and closes at 9am GMT on Monday 10th January We are very proud to be sponsored by a number of very kind stores for this challenge with lots of winners for this one and the prizes on offer are...

£10 voucher from Joanna Sheen

£10 voucher from The Stampman

$10 voucher for Stitchy Bear Stamps

Pack of 5 promarkers from Letraset

£10 voucher for Crafts & Me

£10 worth of stamps of your choice from Stamping all day

So here are my embarassing efforts!

I thought I would take this challenge back to the FIRST card I made. At least the first one my lovely Mum decided was worthy of saving! Awwww I bet we have all done that I know I have some cringeworthy efforts stored away from my own Daughter. Anyhow this one I believe I was around 5! Good writing for a 5 year old, but I had started school at 4 and a half. Perhaps I was a child genius, lol, who knows. If you are still awake and want to see more of my early efforts scroll to the bottom of the post!

Now my first ‘official’ first card, or at least one of the first I made. This one was made in December 2005, and is basically a shaped card with shaped peel offs stuck on and a santa image with a small sentiment. I cannot believe I sent that to someone, lol

And my most recent card, which I would also like to enter into a few challenges. Apologies to any DT members who might have had to read this far to see how my card meets their criteria, but hey, it’s Christmas!

I have taken a digi image called Birthday Boy from Stitchy Bear Stamps (scroll up for details as they are one of our sponsors for this challenge), and coloured it with prisma pencils, with just a little promarkering for his skin.  I dusted stormy sky DI around the edge of the image. The papers are all Basic Grey from their Blush pad and the sentiment I made myself on the pc. I was gonna make it a christmas themed card with a ‘who gave Grandpa sprouts!!!’ sentiment, or ‘a Grandad is for life, not just for Christmas’ but I didn’t know if everyone would get the joke, so made a birthday card instead.  Buttons from my stash.

I am entering this into the following challenges

Order of the Opus Gluei – Anything Goes

Creative Card Crew – Anything Goes

Stamp Something – December Digi Day

Now for any of you who are still with me, the rest of my early masterpieces. You can just tell what a talented person I was going to turn out, can’t you (NOT!) I was 7 when I made this.

 

I believe I based my exceptionally witty prose on something that might have been in a card sent to me! Cos my Mum actually shrunk as she got older, lol

The next one is a birthday card made when I was 9, oh dear the excuse of age is rapidly disappearing – in fact, don’t know about you, but I actually thing the one I did when I was 7 was better, lol

and inside

Two Mother’s Day cards, showing exceptional flair, LMAO clearly in the first one I invented the cut away card as you can see the inside on the outside!

 

IN this final effort I was just again mistress of the prose as the inside reads

Dear Mother whom I dearly love

I wish I were a little dove

A sitting on your window sill

where all is still

My dearest fairest one of whom

I deeply love moon after moon

 

Oh dear, I have to confess that when I found these it made me cry, and not cos they are so awful but because my lovely Mum obviously treasured them as she kept them for the best part of 45 years!

And this last one is just because……..

I am not sure how old I was here but my Sister and I left this out for ‘Santa’ one year

and our Dad replied

You can see where I get my artistic talent, and particularly my witty rhymes from now can’t you!!! ………………. LOL, LOL *voice dripping with sarcasm here*

So if I haven’t bored you all rigid by now, PLEASE pop on over and enter our huge Christmas/New Year Challenge at Crafty Cardmakers (rules above), and show us your first efforts. Heaps of prizes on offer ladies, so don’t be shy. I am going to enjoy visiting your blogs and seeing your amazing creations; and Crafty Cardmakers will be back in the New Year!

Happy Christmas everyone, and best wishes for 2011.

CCM Spotlight on Tags

This fortnight on Crafty Cardmakers we are spotlighting Tags. I actually intended to do the whole luggage tag thing, but after I had printed and coloured my image I realised it was the wrong direction to fit on a tag. I needed something tall and slim, not short and wide! Duh!!! I turned it into a gift tag instead.

Anyhow the image is from Prairie Fairy and is called Tryouts. Prairie Fairy are sponsoring us this week and are offering 5 of their gorgeous images to the winner. I am sure you will find something there you like. I know I did.

I love the fact there is a lion there. I’m guessing he is trying out for the part of Rudolph in the Christmas play as he has some faux antlers on his head! I didn’t know there were lions at the North Pole. However, I was amazed when my Sister came home with video footage of penguins in a colony on a beach in South Africa! So if Penguins can live in South Africa, why can’t lions live at the Pole?

I coloured them in with promarkers and then dusted some Stormy Sky and Broken Glass Distress Inks around the top of the image. The bottom I used snowtex and dusted over that with glamour dust, which gives the most gorgeous sparkle (sadly not showing up here, this winter light has a lot to answer for with photography) but without looking like glitter. I did also put some hills in but they have gotten lost in the photo somehow. I also put some snowtex on their heads so they look as if they have been in a snowball fight.

I matted the whole thing onto glitter card and then added an eyelet and some ribbons for the tag tie.

Why don’t you join in the fun. You can make any size or shape you like, attached to a card or separate, gift tags, tag books etc.

Woohooo I won!

I am such an idiot, I completely forgot to blog this. Chance to brag and it goes right out of my head!

Remember my jewellery I made with shrink plastic back in October? Well I entered it for the Crafty Computer Paper competition in the paper crafts section and I only went and won first prize! £100 to spend in their store.

Here is a link to the email with the other competition winners in it and a little reminder of what I did below.

This is a pic of me with the lovely bottle of champagne they sent me and a large Winner’s Voucher!

 

Gotcha! I’m way too shy to show myself!!!  …………………………………………………………………….    Okay, I admit it, I hate having photos taken of me so this is the best you will get!

But you can have this one of my Daughter instead. She will kill me for showing her in her baggy, but oh so warm, winter wooly ………

I spent most of yesterday going through their site choosing what I wanted to spend my prize on.

I have been feeling a bit under the weather for the last week or so which is why there is nothing new on here, but hopefully I should be back soon.