Crafty Cardmakers #81 Our Final Challenge for 2012 – Inspired by a Song

I think I went a little mad at Crafty Cardmakers with our current and final challenge for 2012. I was sitting, as you do, at the pc and listening to music and Jim Croce’s ‘Time In A Bottle’ started playing and as I listened to the words it reminded me of all the Christmasses past when I had so many family around me, and of all the happy times and just what it would mean to me to be able to save time in a bottle to spend when, where or with whom I like. So I thought it would make a great final challenge for this year.

I would like you to click the link above for a listen, or read the lyrics below, and see if they can inspire you to create something a bit different to the normal Christmas challenges for this time of year. You could go with the entire sentiment of the song, pick out phrases, maybe make a scrapbook LO, something time related? I am sure you get the idea.

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I'd like to do

Is to save every day

Till Eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true

I'd save every day like a treasure and then,

Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go

Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty

Except for the memory

Of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go

Through time with

Anyhow, I am in desperate need of a clock for my front room as I broke mine whilst packing to move, and have been so busy since I got here that I hadn’t had time to make one so this seemed the perfect excuse to get down and dirty and see what I could come up with.

I caved in and purchased a couple more PanPastel colours!!! I couldn’t help myself, since my experiment with the pure turquoise I was a goner, so I went for the Magenta, Violet, and Phtalo Blue too!

I started off by blending the PanPastels onto the clock base, until I was happy with the colour and then I placed a Tattered Angels Glimmer mask over the centre and used various TA Glimmer Mists to spray to leave the buttefly pattern on the clock base. Before I removed the mask I used a small paintbrush and removed the spray nozzle from some other TA Glimmer Mists and used it to paint the patterns inside the butterfly. The edges of the clock were stamped with various parts of a swirl stamp, and the sentiment was printed onto safmat, and is one of the phrases in the lyrics of the song.

I finished it off with a small floral embellishment on one corner.

This is my gift to me, along with the PanPastels (naughty Witch!)

I have to say that I originally did this on a bracket shaped clock, and I had it almost as I wanted it, but decided that the edges needed something a little extra, maybe some embossing. It was at that point I got really angry with myself as I overdid the embossing powder and it looked awful. There really was no way to rescue it so I attempted to trim the embossed part away but that made it look worse, so several hours of work ended up in the BIN!!!! Never has the phrase ‘there never seems to be enough time’ seemed quite so appropriate, lol

I am sorry that you cannot see the gorgeous shimmer on the butterfly and surrounding it, but the light conditions are not good, particularly as I now have a 6 foot tree blocking the natural light in my lounge and there is virtually no natural light in my other rooms!

I would love for you to show me what you can create over at Crafty Cardmakers and we have a fabulous prize offered by our lovely Kim which I am sure you will have a great deal of enjoyment using. So come on over and see if you would like to join in the fun.

I am entering this into the following challenges:-

Craft My Life – All Crafts Challenge #3

Crafty Bloggers – #6 Anything Goes

Di’s Digi Designs – Anything But a Card Christmas Creation

Glitter N Sparkle Challenge Blog – #10 Use Some Metal (My clock hands are metal!)

Great Impressions – December Challenge Anything Goes

Love To Create – #45 Anything Goes

PanPastel – #48 Song or Carol Title

Sugar Creek Hollow – #41 Stencils and Masks

Stamp Your Life – #1 Anything Goes

Stamps & Fun=Creativity – #129 No Christmas Card

Stamptacular Sunday – #193 Anything But A Card

Lexi’s Creations #80 Snow

Our challenge to you at Lexi’s Creations this time is SNOW, and I hope we don’t actually get any here as I recently moved half way down a hill and I suspect any whitestuff and I will be housebound until it clears!

We are sponsored by the fabulous Joanna Sheen with a £10 voucher for her store.

I have gone for some nice unsual Christmas colours for my snow creation. My image is from Wee Stamps and is called Heidi, and I have coloured her with copics.

The glittery vellum I used for my Memory Box border die was in my stash for years, as is the snowflake embellishment. The white embossed background is an M-bossabilities folder. Small strip of paper is from Best Creations, although I went over it with Rusty Hinge DI to colour it to match the other colours used on the card.

I am entering this into the following:-

2 Sisters Challenge – #121 Snowflakes

ABC Challenges – #8 Let It Snow

Addicted to Stamps – #45 Bingo (Glitter, Embossed, Snowflake)

Christmas Card Challenges – 2013 Christmas Card Challenge Week #2

C.R.A.F.T. – #184 Christmas

Crafty Sentiments Designs – Snowflakes

Die Cuttin’ Divas – #94 Holiday Spirit

Just Us Girls – #166 Embossing

My Time to Craft – #200 Non Traditional Christmas

Scrappers Delight Challenge Blog – Non Traditional Christmas

Dream Valley #47 Christmas

Our challenge to you at Dream Valley until next year is a nice simple one, Christmas!

We have three fabulous sponsors, Bugaboo, Meljen’s Designs and Crafty Ribbons, please see the Dream Valley blog for more details.

For my card I used the new Crafter’s Companion SWALK Digital cdrom with all the cute SWALK images todate as digital images. I do like rubber, but digital is so much more versatile in different ways to rubber, most especially being able to resize or intigrate with other stamps without masking, although this one is just the one image. This one is called Happy Holidays. I coloured it with my copics. The papers were a freebie from a magazine CDRom from My Craft Studio, so it’s basically all digital, apart from the diecuts which are a Marianne Christmas Tree and Britannia word dies.

I am entering this into the following:-

Card Crafters Circle – #52 December Celebrations

Cupcake Craft – #222 Merry Christmas

Deep Ocean Challenge – #40 So This Is Christmas

Delicious Doodles – #14 Anything Christmas With Blue

Emerald Fairies – #38 Christmas

Loves Rubberstamps – #30 Let It Snow

Pause, Dream, Enjoy – #49 Blue and White

Raise The Bar – #123 Blues and White

Stamp Your Life – #1 Anything Goes

Sweet Stampin’ Challenge – Dies and Punches

ABC C Clear it Out

Oh dear you can tell Christmas is at hand, I completely forgot to post my ABC card for this fortnight! Ooooops

Our challenge is C for Clear It Out.

We are sponsored by Stamp Fairy with a $10 gift certificate.

I have used a lovely Stamp Fairy image called Lenny, and coloured him in with prisma pencils. My papers are from Basic Grey and they are what I ‘cleared out’ as I have had the Origin papers for a very long time! The brown mat is a Marianne die and the patterned frame is a lovely die from Memory Box called Tiffany Frame. The bow die is also Memory Box and the butterflies are Magnolia DooHickey. If you look at my lower butterfly you can see that it has the yellow waste from the top butterfly. I was trying to be a smart alec and save myself a bunch of cutting and cut the green and yellow papers together. The result was a happy accident of the yellow waste transferring itself to the green butterfly so I left it in place as I thought it looked interesting.

I am entering this into the following:-

7 Kids College Fund – Anything Goes

Bugaboo Stamps – Anything Goes

Crafty Boots – Anything Goes

Digi Galore – Anything Goes

Corrosive Challenge – #163 Anything Goes

Great Impression Stamps – Anything Goes

Joanna Sheen – Anything Goes Excluding Christmas

One Stitch At A Time – Anything Goes

Stamp Your Life – #1 Anything Goes

 

Crafty Cardmakers #80 Christmas Photo Inspiration

Our challenge this time at Crafty Cardmakers is ‘surprise’ a Christmas themed one! We have a photo inspiration challenge for you hosted by Fiona with this gorgeous picture

You can take your inspiration from any part of it, colour, content, theme, even the dog!

I chose the colour and came up with this

This is my first outing with Pan Pastels. Everyone has been raving about them and I usually rush right in and buy everything in sight and then find that quite frankly I am too ham fisted to use the item and it ends up on ebay, a bargain for someone and an expensive mistake for me.This time, however, I decided to err on the side of caution. I knew we had this challenge coming up so I bought just one pastel in the pure colour range, turquoise. I loved how easily it went onto the card, as I coloured the background card with the pastel before embossing it with a Crafters Companion 8” embossing folder. After I had embossed it I went over the raised areas with the same colour (well I only had the one, lol) and it darkened up the areas that were raised.

Next I stamped with versamark onto a separate piece of car IndigoBlu’s Baroque Christmas tree and dusted over with the pastel again. It sticks to the versamark a treat and I was really pleased with the result. A set of these have now made their way onto my birthday present list!!! I loved the way it glided onto the card, both smoothly and over embossed areas and again how well it covered the versamark ink without leaving too much residue on the un-inked areas of the card. A much better result, for me that is, than using Inks as I always seem to be so heavy handed with the cut and dry foam or the blending tool, and too light with ink dusters.

The gems were from my stash as are the little diecut gift and the holographic silver card I used for matting. Sentiment was free with a Magazine stamp set.

We are sponsored by Di’s Digi Downloads with a $10 voucher and also by Crop Stop with a $15 voucher for their store. Please see the Crafty Cardmakers blog for more details.

I am entering this into the following:-

By The Cute and Girly – Nov - Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Chalk-Ah-Lot – #23 Anything Goes

Hiding In My Craft Room – #73 Christmas

Ladybug Crafts – #3 Monochrome/Tonal

Little Claire’s Designs – 27 Christmas

Live & Love Crafts – #5 Christmas

Pan Pastel UK – #46 Frosty and Bright

Paper Creator’s Crafts – #1 All About Christmas

Sparkles Monthly Challenge – #38 Christmas Is Coming

The Outlawz PAM – Anything Goes

Lexi’s Creations #79 Christmas

Today at Lexi’s Creations we want to see your Christmas cards, which is a great challenge for me as I have yet to finish all my cards and this spurred me on to create one more.
We are sponsored by My Heart Pieces.

I have used another Make It Crafty Christmas Elf, this one is called Duffy, and like the last one I have coloured him with a combination of prisma pencils and copies for skin and hair. The papers are Basic Grey from their Jovial pad, and the poinsettia and the balls on the ends of Scruffy’s hat are from my stash. The corner is from Memory Box.

I am entering Scruffy into the following:-
Allsorts Challenge – #182 Bring on The Bling
Eclectic Ellapu – #7 Celebration with Sparkle
Hiding In My Craft Room – #73 Christmas
Designs by Lisa Somerville – Countdown to Christmas (bloghop see below)
Little Claire’s Designs – 27 Christmas
Paper Creator’s Crafts – #1 All About Christmas
Polka Doodles – #47 Any Die Will Do
Sparkles Monthly Challenge – #38 Christmas Is Coming
Stampin’ For The Weekend – #22 Use Some Texture
The Outlawz PAM – Anything Goes

Dream Valley 46 Non Traditional Christmas

This fortnight at Dream Valley we would like to see your take on a non traditional Christmas, and a chance for you to catch up with any unmade Christmas cards! We have on offer a secret goody bag for the winner!

I used one of Make It Crafty’s Christmas Elf Tinkles, and I coloured her with a combination of copics for skin and hair and prisma pencils for the rest of her. The papers are all from Bearly Mine and they are from their Christmas Sparkle and Christmas Swirls collections. The snowflake borders and corner are Memory Box dies and the other snowflakes are x-cut punches.

I am entering this into:-

Addicted to Stamps – #44 Christmastime

Allsorts Challenge – #182 Bring on The Bling

Christmas Stampin All Year Long – #37 To Die For

Colour Me Creative Classroom – Non Traditional Christmas Colours

Eclectic Ellapu – #7 Celebration with Sparkle

Hiding In My Craft Room – #73 Christmas

Little Claire’s Designs – 27 Christmas

Paper Creator’s Crafts – #1 All About Christmas

Christmas Stampin All Year Long – #37 To Die For

Sparkles Christmas Challenge – #22 Contemporary Colour Combo

ABC B is for Butterfly

Over at ABC today our challenge t0 you is B for Butterfly.

We are sponsored by Bunny Zoe with 1 £10 gift certificate for her store.

My papers are from Basic Grey’s Sugared, at least I think that was the pad. I am afraid I pulled them out a long time ago and didn’t think to label them on the back but I know they are BG because of the quality of the paper, which is actually more like cardstock.

The mats were some crinkly pink paper I had in my stash. I didn’t have enough to do all the mats so I gutted the large 8x8 piece to make the smaller  mat and then did the same again to make the mat behind the image! No wonder I have a paper mountain if I make one sheet cover three things!

The butterfly image is a Kanban stamp, and I stamped it again and cut out the butterflies to add to the top and give some dimension. The ribbon and pearls were from my stash, although the pearls were white and I coloured them with my copics, but also the ribbon was white coloured with distress inks. The flowers I used a versamark pen on the edges of the petals and the centre of the flowers so I could emboss with the same sparkly pink WOW powder that I embossed the image with.

I am entering this into the following:-

Catered Crop – Arsenic and Old Lace Recipe Swap

Creative Crafts – Bingo (Lace, Stamps, Pastels)

Fairy Tale Challenge – #54 Embossing

Fussy and Fancy – #75 Pearls and Flowers

Glitter n Sparkle – #6 Things With Wings

Hanna and Friends - #158 Sketch

Hot Shot Crafts – #13 Butterflies

Penny Black – Nov Any Die Will Do

Scrapbook Stamp Society – Add a Little Lace

The Corrosive Challenge – #162 Flutter By

The Ribbon Girl – Add Sparkle

CCM 79 More than one Punch And/Or Die Cut

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers today is for you to use more than one punch and/or die cut. You can use one of each, or two of one or any combination you can think of, provided there is a minimum of two on your creation.

We are sponsored once again by the fabulous Hobby Art with two gorgeous sheets of stamps and by Milk, Coffee Stamps with a prize of 5 digi’s from their store.  Please check out the Crafty Cardmakers challenge blog for more details.

I have created my card with a lovely digital stamp from Make It Crafty called ‘Alyssa Elven Princess’. I have coloured her with a combination of copics, promarkers and prisma pencils. After she was finished I cut her out with Labels 8 from Spellbinders and then used Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink to colour in around her to tone in with the colours in my backing papers which are all from Basic Grey’s Lauderdale pad. I cut a mat from the same pad using Decorative Labels 8. The border is a EK Success border punch and the flowers are EK Success Retro Flower punch in large and medium.

The main backing paper was stitched in place with my cute new John Lewis mini sewing machine. My Daughter said it looked and felt like a toy one cos it was so lightweight and a funky purple colour, but it does the job my Toyota refuses to do on card.

Alyssa’s wings were painted with a zig glue pen and then I added Glamour Dust. I love glamour dust because pretty much any colour can be covered with it and you can still see the colour underneath but have a gorgeous glittery finish, without adding colour.

I am entering this into the following:-

Charisma Cardz – #44 Feeling Blue

Digistamps4Joy – #54 Bingo – No Orange, No Ribbon, 2 Flowers and 4 Patt Papers, No Apples, No Buttons

Flutterby Wednesday – #213 Anything with Fairy or Butterfly

Happy Campers – #4 Bright Colours

Little Red Wagon – #158 Colouring

Stampin’ For the Weekend – #21 All Stitched Up

Stamp N Doodle – Use a Digi

The Outlawz Twisted Thursday - Something with Wings and Glitter

The Paper Shelter – #89 Faires and Elves

The Ribbon Girl – Add Sparkle

Lexi’s Creations #78 Thanks/Thanksgiving

This fortnight over at Lexi’s Creations we would like to see your Thanks/Thanksgiving Creations.

We are sponsored once again by Fairy Dust Crafts 

Check out this fabulous craft store there is such a lot there, including Lexi’s own images,  and the prices are amazing!!!

For full details of the challenge and to see some absolutely beautiful inspirational creations from our design team call across to Lexi's Creations Challenge Blog.

For my card I wanted to show just how versatile the digital images that FDC supply us with can be. I took one of their images called ‘Wired Heart’ and loaded it into my graphics package. I constructed my own sentiment using various different fonts and used the heart as a substitue for the word ‘heart’ in my sentiment. I then used a colour picker to pick some colours from my backing paper, which was from Bearly Mine’s Patchwork Party pack, and used those colours to digitally colour in the heart to match.

Whilst I was digitally playing with colours, I couldn’t find a matching plain paper to mat and layer with so I also used one of the predominant colours in the Patchwork paper to colour a solid plain sheet of paper to tone. The diecut is a Joycrafts one, the pins from my stash and the corners are a Memory Box die, macarena corner. The paper lace was white and I shaded it pink with a Colour Box pink inkpad. The two little flowers are made from Martha Stewart paper clay and then I just dusted over them with the same pink ink I used to colour my white adhesive paper lace.

I am entering this into the following:-

Card Mania Challenges – #7 Embossing

Charisma Cardz – #44 Feeling Blue

Digistamps4Joy – #54 Bingo – No Twine,No Angel,Heart,No Gems,No Green

Everybody Art – Embossing

Fairy Tale Challenge – #54 Embossing

PanPastel UK – #44 Make an Embellishment (my paperclay flowers)

Scrap Creations – Do It Digi

Simply Create – Linky Party #10

Stamp N Doodle – Use a Digi

Top Tip Tuesday – #89 We’re All Heart

Dream Valley 45 – Anything Goes

Over at Dream Valley today our challenge is an nice easy one, Anything Goes, we are sponsored by Joanna Sheen with a £10 for her fabulous online store.

When I saw we had an ‘Anything Goes’ challenge coming up at Dream Valley and it was due to be published on Remembrance Sunday then I knew I had to make this card, not only in remembrance but as a thank you to all our fallen heroes who paid the ultimate price. The poppies are one of Sheena Douglass’s beautiful stamps, and I coloured them with Festive Berries and Evergreen Bough Distress Inks. The poem was written by my Daughter when she was only 14. They had just covered WW1 in history and it clearly affected her deeply as she came home and wrote two poems which, to my mind, beautifully sum up the horror, sadness and losses of war. I have to admit to being proud that she has such a sensitive soul. Please respect her and do not copy the poem.

My Father was unable to fight in WWII due to having had an horrible accident with fire a couple of years before, but he was one of the many people who worked the land, working for the Surrey WarAg to keep our people fed, and my Grandfather, again too old to fight was stationed in London as a Fireman. His eyes would glaze over on Remembrance Sunday and I know he was reliving the horrors that he had witnessed during The Blitz. My Mum used to tell me how they would look out of their bedroom windows in their Surrey home and could see the sky bright red as London burned following a bombing raid.

Last year I was absolutely horrified when our local Poundland store forbade their members of staff to wear a poppy! They said it was unfair on the many religions that frequented the store. Utter poppycock, the remembrance poppy transcends religion, it’s a symbol of sacrifice and remembrance, not of any specific religious belief . When I look around me today I sometimes wonder why these brave men and women gave their everything as we seem to become less and less caring and respectful of our fellow human beings, but I am grateful for the many sacrifices these men and women have made.

I shall also be remembering today the people who are no longer here, but who have had an influence on my life.

I am entering this into the following:-

Amusing Challenges – Thank You

Card Crafters Circle – #48 We Remember

Card Makin’ Mamas – Thanksgiving/Thank You

Crafts and Me – #108 Reds

Crafty Sentiments – Poppies

Critter Sketch Challenge – #140 Veteran’s Day/Remembrance

Daisy Doodles – Remembrance/Veteran’s Day

Delicious Doodles – #10 Remembering

My Sheri Crafts – Give Thanks

Paper Pretties – PWC231 Thank You

Party Time Tuesday – PTT93 Thank You

Poodles Parlour – Thank You

Scrappy Frogs – Give Thanks

Sentimental Sundays – 128 Thanks/Thanksgiving

Sparkle and Glitter The Rick St. Dennis Challenge – #3 Remember

That Craft Place – Red for Remembrance

The House That Stamps Built – DCC117 Anything that Gives Thanks

The Outlawz (PAM) – Thankful

The Paper Girls – #19 Thank You

Wags N Whispers – #92 Be Thankful

ABC A for Appreciation

At ABC today we would like to see your creations along the Appreciation theme, so that could be a thank you card, thanksgiving, or

We are sponsored by Stamp Fairy who are giving away a $10 gift certificate for their store and also by In2Stamps with a 10 Euro certificate for their store.

I used Stamp Fairy’s Molly Love. She did come with two hearts just about the envelope on the right hand side as you look at her, but the beauty of digi stamps is that you can remove things without masking etc. So I just erased the hearts before I printed it, as I didn’t want them for this design.

She is coloured with copics and prisma pencils. The background, Core’dinations paper, was put through a Marianne cut and emboss folder, and the embossing sanded back. The image was cut out with a Marianne Craftables Doily die. The flowers and brads were from my stash, and the thank you sentiment was created using a Lifestyle Crafts Clip-It die.

I am entering Molly into the following:-

365 Cards – Day 243 A Certain Sentiment – Thank you

Can you Digi It – Give Thanks

Dutch Dare – #189 Thankful

Hiding in My Craftroom – #69 Thankful

House of Gilli – #44 Emboss It

Ladybug Crafts – #3 Monochrome/Tonal

Paper Play Challenges – ‘12#44 Thanks a Bunch

Robyn’s Fetish – #131 Use and Embossing Folder

Sassy Studio Designs – #149 Thanks

Victorine Stamps – #46 Bingo – Right hand side Embossing, Colouring, Brads

Crafty Cardmakers #78 Shaped Card Featuring a Reindeer or Two

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers this time around is a shaped card with a Reindeer or Reindeers. Tracey our hostess has requested that we make any shape we like as long as it is not a rectangle or a square.

We are sponsored by both and by with a £10 voucher from The Stamp Man and $10 from Di’s Digi Downloads.

I created my card by placing the patterned reindeer and tree stamps, both free from Simply Cards and Papercraft and from HOTP, either side of two stamps from Kanban, so that they were all on my acrylic block lined up and ready to go. I would normally have stamped the two different types separately because of the differences that can occur in depths of stamps. However, I knew they had to fit inside the Nestie shape I had already cut out for the shaped card. I did a test stamp and luckily they stamped fine. I then ran the whole thing through a cuttlebug embossing folder which is designed to look like random snow falling. I did it so that it debossed, instead of embossed as I knew that I was going to ink to create the night sky, and embossed dots would have picked up the ink more when I did this.

As you can see the ink did catch the edges of the holes a little more than the rest of the card, but it’s not as noticeable as it would have been had I embossed instead of debossed it. I used a zig glue pen to dot into the holes made by the folder and also the tree and ground I used Snow Writer on, I then sprinkled with glamour dust.

I cut a matching piece of card and created a spine which I glued to the back of the design side. This looks better, I think, than having to miss cutting the edge of the design in order to make a shaped card from folded cardstock with no gluing required.

This has made a lovely small card which under UK postage regulations can go for the cheapest possible amount! I might have to make a few more for the ones that have to be mailed…..

I am entering this into

Charisma Cardz – #42 Don’t Be Square

Crafty Ann’s Challenge – #77 Christmas In October

Crafty Hazlenut’s Christmas Challenge – #96 No Patterned Paper

DYSU – #95 Embossing Wet or Dry

Gingerloft Challenge – GL51 No Colouring Allowed (please feel free to delete if not appropriate but your challenge said no copics and pencils I only used an inkpad for the sky!)

Hot Shot Craft – #12 Bling It On

One Stitch at a Time – #137 Make 1 For Christmas

Penny Black and More – October Animal Magic

Robyn’s Fetish – #131 Use An Embossing Folder

Southern Girls # 56 Animal Crackers

Lexi’s Creations #77 Special Birthday

Woohooo Lexi’s Creations is three years old and in celebration of that we would like to see you create a special birthday card.

We are sponsored by with a free seat to a class of their choice and by our original sponsor and creator of Lexi’s Creations, Lexi from with 5 digis from her store.

My card is special because it’s for a little girl who is One year old. Baby’s first birthday, such an exciting time. I can still remember my own Daughter’s first birthday almost 28 years ago! She was already into so much mischief then, climbing into the bay window, putting things down the toilet and blocking it, and just generally filling my life with laughter! She started walking bang on her EIGHT month birthday! I remember my Mum bought her one of those baby walker things, this one was a huge telephone on wheels with a tall handle that the baby is supposed to hang onto and push the phone across the floor, holding on in order to steady themselves.

My Mother’s face was an absolute treat when she sat and assembled this and placed it on the carpet in front of Emily, she then got all excited as Emily scrabbled to pull herself up until she was holding onto the handle. It was at this point whilst my Mum was whispering to me ‘look, look!’ that Emily lifted the telephone walker off the ground and walked a few steps with it in the air! Happy Days…………. oooops back to the matter in hand. So my card is for a one year old.

How difficult is it to find a number one that you can print! I searched and searched but couldn’t find one with a fat enough bottom! I wanted to create a One shaped card, but couldn’t find one suitable for doing that with. Eventually I found the one I have used on my pc but it wasn’t fat enough to support what I wanted to do, so I just printed it and then trimmed it out in Basic Grey paper. I have edged it and the top layer of bp with white pen. The swirl on the number is a sizzlit die. The little circle banners are from Whimsey Stamps with their matching stamp set. The image is Panda Dress Up Dee from our own Lexi, coloured with copics, although I am not happy with the panda’s fur. The little teddy, at least I think it’s a teddy, charm was in my stash.

I am entering this into:-

Amusing Challenges – Anything Goes

Basic Grey Challenges – #80 Anything Goes

Brown Sugar Challenge – #13 Anything Goes

Card Makin’ Mamas – Anything Goes

Fairytale Challenge – #53 Monochrome with Dies and Punches

Fussy and Fancy – #74 Anything Goes

Glitter n Sparkle – #4 Monochrome

The Poodles Parlour – Anything Goes

SJ Papercrafts – #10 Birthdays

Stampin’ For the Weekend – #20 Anything Goes

Dream Valley 44 – Glitter and Bling

Our challenge today over at Dream Valley is Glitter and Bling, so basically anything sparkly, twinkly or with a bit of bling!

Our sponsor this time is with four of their fabulous images on offer to our winner.

It’s always difficult getting a picture of something with mirri on it, as there is always a glare, so apologies if this is rather bright!

My image is from IndigoBlu and she is called Ella Bella. I have tried very hard to get on with IndigoBlu’s flitter glue but to no avail, things do not go according to plan. However, luckily I had some Stampendous Stamp’n’Bond, which is a lovely glue embossing powder. I stamped Ella onto cardstock with a versamark pad and then sprinkled on the Stamp’n’Bond. You heat it until it goes clear at which point it is tacky. I dunked Ella into a tub of Lancashire Rose gilding flakes and made sure she was generously covered. After tidying it up this is what I was left with.

My corners were slightly more tricky. I put some double sided adhesive sheet onto card and the first one I cut out with the Memory Box Macarena corner and then peeled back the protective paper and dunked it into the flakes. However, this particular die is very slender and has very thin tendrils and it was extremely difficult to rub with the scoochy sponge to remove the excess flakes without also tearing the diecut. So the other three I had to waste flake by dunking the whole of the rest of the sheet and covering that before cutting out the remaining corners. I still have the excess, trying to see if I can find a small die or punch to use with it!!! Waste not, want not………….

The picture above is of the first one I cut, and you can see small areas where it was next to impossible to remove the excess flakes, but the other three, whilst wasteful were much easier. I dare say a thicker die would have been fine but not this delicate one.

The card was finished off with a Marianne Creatables die cut from both the white cardstock and gorgeous copper mirri paper.

I am entering Ella into the following:-

Amusing Challenges – Anything Goes

Brown Sugar Challenge – #13 Anything Goes

Card Makin’ Mamas – Anything Goes

Die Cuttin Divas – #88 Shimmer, Glimmer, Gloss

Flourishes – #192 Birthday

Fussy and Fancy – #74 Anything Goes

Gingerloft Challenge – GL51 No Colouring Allowed

Hot Shot Craft – #12 Bling It On

The Outlawz – Twisted Thursday Anything Goes/halloween twist

The Poodles Parlour – Anything Goes