DV 53 Pearls and Lace

We have a lovely challenge for you at Dream Valley today, pearls and lace. Who doesn’t love pearls and lace. Do remember to pop on over to the Dream Valley blog and check out the team’s creations.

We are sponsored by Saturated Canary and the team were lucky enough to be offered a gorgeous image from Krista to use in this challenge. I was cheeky and chose a double, PuppyLuv.

I coloured in the boy and girl’s hair and skin with copics, for the skin and promarkers for the hair. Then I just fancied something a little different to colouring their clothes, so I printed the image again twice onto some My Mind’s Eye paper from their Quite Contrary Range, Mary, Mary. I printed just two sheets up one in a sort of harlequin blue and the other in a soft floral pink. I think trimmed various bits of each of them out and paper pieced them in place. My base card was made with Frilly Square 10 from Go Kreate, as were all the mats, including the image. I layered a couple of sheets of the Mary, Mary paper onto the base card and then stuck lace ribbon around the edge of the image mat. The flowers were cut from Silver Edge Venise Lace and coloured with promarkers to tone in with the outfits the boy and girl are wearing. The pearls were coloured with the same promarkers.

I am entering this into the following challenges:-

Catered Crop - Flower Power Quickfire

Charisma Cardz Challenges - #11 Die Cuts (Whole card is die cut)

Craft Your Passion - #154 Ribbons or Lace

Dutch Dare Card Challenge - #209 shaped Cards

Docerela Creations - #34 Pastel Colours

Hybrid Chick Card Caravan Challenge - Shaped Cards

Jellypark Friends Friday Challenges - Pretty Pastels

One Stitch At a Time - #156 Use a Digi

Paper Crafting Journey - Ribbon or Lace

Sassy Studio - #169 Paper Piecing

CCM 87 Friendship

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers this fortnight is to make a card or in fact any project but it must include either the word ‘Friend’, ‘Friends’ or ‘Friendship’. We have two great sponsors as usual. Sir Stampalot who have provided us with two gorgeous sentiment stamp sheets (see the main blog for details) and also Saturated Canary who offer our winner two of their stunning digis.

I have used an image from our second Sponsor called ‘Springtime’, and coloured her with a combination of Copics and Promarkers.

What I LOVE above digital images is the ability to have them any size you like. This was particularly handy with this card as I wanted her to sit inside my new Marianne Oval Passe-Partout Die and the inside of that is only 78mmx58mm, so you can see that a normal stamp might have struggled to fit inside that small space. Of course, the disadvantage is that it’s more difficult to colour smaller areas. Thank heavens for the Promarker Fine Tips!

My lovely patterned paper arrived free with a craft magazine on Saturday! Fast work eh, lol…. The plainer lemon paper that the image has been cut from was also in the same free paper pack. The lovely Marianne Die has the gorgeous cut out area and also a larger plain die to cut an aperture into the paper, so it’s particularly effective for this card.

I created my sentiment on my pc and printed it onto safmat.

I think the paper is pretty enough and already has enough lovely flowers that I didn’t want to embellish it any further, so I ended up with a nice CAS card.

I am entering this into the following challenges:-

A Gem of a Challenge - #81 Easter/Spring

Alota Rubberstamps - #103 Springtime

Color Me Creative - #64 Spring Colours

Di’s Digi Designs - Easter/Spring

Glitter ‘n’ Sparkle - #24 Easter/Spring Colours

Marianne Design Divas - At the Bottom of the Garden

My Creative Moments - Wordplay Saturday Challenge March ‘Springtime’

Natalie and Amy’s Challenge - #7 Diecuts

Order of the Opus Gluei - #152 Spring Has Sprung

Paper Creators Crafts - #7 Spring Has Sprung

Lexi’s Creations 86 Mother’s Day or Special Female Birthday

Our challenge at Lexi’s Creations this time is a card for either a Mother’s Day card or a special female birthday card, so no male inspired cards please. We realise that Mother’s Day in the UK was last weekend (although I actually celebrated mine yesterday because my Daughter was ill with flu the week before), but there are other Countries who have not yet had their Mother’s Day celebrations.

We are sponsored by Fairy Dust Crafts and the prize is 5 digi images from the store.

I was intrigued by some stencil work I saw on Create and Craft TV  a couple of weeks back and decided to get some supplies (room already bursting at the sames but yet I purchase more stuff! shoot me now).

I used a mylar stencil/mask called Blossom from Imagination Crafts, but this technique works really well with any stencil or mask, metal or mylar. This I taped down on some glossy patterned cardstock also from Imagination Crafts (I suspect that the Dreamweaver paste might work better NOT on glossy cardstock, more of that later), then using some Dreamweaver embossing paste I wiped it over the stencil, filling up the gaps. After carefully peeling it back I then sprinkled mica powder all over the paste areas. Be prepared to LOSE a lot of powder as obviously you cannot rub it into wet paste and it does tend to drop down in clumps, and even though  tried to tap off the excess between applications of different colours they tended not to want to shake loose, although when I had finally finished clearly there was a lot to be wiped away, but by then it was all one muddy dirty colour mixed together. I did three different colours. Then using a heat gun I heated it. I did try from underneath but suspect I would have been there all day, so heated from above. This made the paste (which you would normally just have left flat to dry so you would get a flat embossed area of the pattern) bubble up and form areas of different depths.

Now I mentioned earlier about glossy cardstock probably not being the best with this particular heating technique and that is I think because the heating makes the paste bubble up and therefore lift slightly off the card. I think the glossy cardstock didn’t hold it as well and I did notice it lifting off the edges of the card before I stuck it onto the mat I used. This might mean it would just peel off if handled roughly. I think plain cardstock would keep hold of it a little better as it would already have soaked slightly into the surface before heating.

It was matted onto DCWV plain cardstock before putting on a scalloped card. The sentiment is from our sponsor. It comes plain black, but I used my graphics programme to recolour it to match the image.

I am entering this into the following:-

2 Sisters Challenge - #135 Flowers for Spring

365Cards - #71 Textured

Catered Crop - Flower Power Recipe Swap

A Creative Need - #5 Birthdays

Docerela Creations - Pastel Colours

Forever Friends Monthly Challenge - Lots of Flowers

One Crazy Stamper - March Anything Goes

One Stitch At A Time - #155 No Design Papers

Paper Pretties - PWC249 Make Your Own Background Paper

Tando Creative - March ‘Flowers’

ABC - J for Just As You Like

At ABC today we have an Anything Goes challenge, or as we like to call it, Just as you like!

We are sponsored by The Paper Shelter with a $20 gift certificate and Stamp and Create with a $25 gift certificate.

I used a Paper Shelter image for my card called Venice Carnival and it comes with a coloured digi, an outline digi (which is what I used) and a background paper, so excellent value for money, and if you are pushed for time you could make a card quite quickly. Mine took a little longer, lol

I coloured my image with a combination of copics and promarkers, and also went over some of the areas with the sakura sparkle pen to give it some glittery highlights, which aren’t showing in the pic above, but in the pic below you can see them quite well.

There is also a close up not showing the glitter. It’s amazing what different light angles will bring out! I went round the edge of the image with purple embossing powder, to tone in with the rest of the card. The pic below was before I chalked the background of the image with a shimmer chalk.

The mask and corner were cut from the same lilac paper. A friend very kindly cut me some masks from the Spellbinders Venitian accents set, but I couldn’t find one amongst the generous amount she sent me that matched what I wanted to do, and so I went over it with versamark and then embossed with the same powder I did around the edge of the image, and did the same with the Cheery Lynn corner die which I cut myself. Now they matched!

They look almost black here, but they are a lovely rich purple. Midnight Violet Obsidian from the Moon Glow range, which are all two toned, I think.

The background I made myself with the Frantage Jewel Encrusted Kit in Purple, such lush things to throw on the card and melt in…… like a magpie I appreciate all the sparkle it creates. You can see it all sparkling away under the mask and in the picture above this one around the corner!

I distressed around the edge with some Pan Pastel chalk and then embossed around the edge with some more Midnight Violet. You can see the difference with embossing from underneath where it ends up silky smooth looking and from above which has given a rougher appearance.

The word ‘Masquerade’ was created using a stencil and some sakura sparkly pens. The pin and feathers were in my stash.

I am entering this into the following challenges:-

365 Cards - Day 73 Scattered

Alphabet Challenge - C for Coveted…… oooooh I coveted those frantage jewel encrusted kits the moment I saw them and thoroughly enjoyed using them here, but the little bottles are sooo small I was frightened to use too much, just on one card  - already been thinking of ways to stretch them out!

Chalk N Stock - March Challenge Anything Goes (chalk on main background - Pan Pastels and around image - Shimmer chalks from Pebbles Inc)

Clearly Inspired Challenge - #70 Die Cuts

Cute Card Thursday - #260 Anything Goes

Emerald Fairie Challenge - #41 Bling

Make My Monday - Heat Embossing

Paper Pretties - PWC249 Make Your Own Background Paper

Papertake Weekly - 1,2,3 (1 image, 2 diecuts, 3 colours, purple, silver grey, and green)

The Outlawz Challenge - 3d Twist (pin and mask)

DV 52 Mother’s Day

Our challenge at Dream Valley this fortnight is Mother’s Day. We are sponsored by Freckled Fawn with a $20 voucher for their store.

I made a tent card (by the way, it’s a good job you cannot see the back! what a mess, trying to get it to stand up, lol).

Anyhow the image is a digi from Pink Gem and she is called Chloe on Swing. I coluored her with my copics and then trimmed her out. I stuck her to a Memory Box Lavish Branch diecut, boy that was difficult too. Hardly any branch, hardly any rope, lol. Anyhow, she is suspended from the branch die so actually does swing.

The bench is  Marianne die, which I then dabbed at with a couple of different DIs to make it look as if it has been sitting in the garden for a while. The butterfly is also a Marianne die, as is the potted plant, which I die cut from pale green felt. I was surprised how well the die went through the felt. I then embossed it and inked through onto the embossed areas. The sentiment is a peel off which I coloured to tone in with the card, onto a Marianne Tag Die.

The papers are from Prima’s Sparkling Spring pad. I stuck them both down onto 180 gsm card, and the front of the tent card I trimmed out the inside of the paper so that Chloe could hang in the aperture.

Happy Belated Mother’s Day! I was so busy moving my bedroom around, a marathon task, I forgot to blog this yesterday. My Daughter has a bad dose of flu so I get to have a special and totally unique Mother’s Day next Sunday instead!

I am entering this into the following challenges:-

Catered Crop - Framed

Crafts 4 Eternity - #114 Marvellous Mums

Creative Craft - #5 Mother’s Day

Joanna Sheen Challenge - Mum’sThe Word

Lili’s Little Fairies - A Card for Mum

Sincerely Yours Creations - #2 Mother’s Day

Songbird Challenges - #15 Mother’s Day

Stamp ‘n’ Doodle - Mother’s Day or card for a female

Stamptacular Sunday - #206 To Die For

Totally Gorjuss - For Mum

CCM 86 Masculine Birthday Featuring Technology or a Gadget

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers this fortnight is a Masculine birthday card which must feature a technology aspect or a gadget. These could be for example, Technology - Computer, Games Console, Mobile Phone, Gadget, Car, Motorbike, Plane etc.

We are sponsored by Di’s Digi Downloads with a $10 gift certificate for their store and by The Stampman with a £10 voucher for their store. By the way it was great to see the lovely Jill Tuck from The Stampman back on our screens via Create and Craft last week…. more please C&C!

Anyhow I thought I would have a bit of fun with my card.

I have had this knitted motorbike image on my pc for a couple of years now, and I have been waiting for the perfect occasion to use it. My BIL’s birthday is coming up soon and as he will be older than dirt (sorry Jim!) and when I first saw him he had a motorbike, not dissimilar to this one, this seemed perfect. I would love to know how long it took to knit the bits and how they made it fit, but it’s a fabulous image I think. I added a sarcastic sentiment to match in with the bike and it’s knitted covers plus a couple of bike charms. I do so hope my BIL still has a sense of humour after he receives this!

My papers are from Bo Bunny’s Enchanted pad, and the diecut behind the sentiment is a Spellbinders tag die.

I have included a copy of the bike picture below so you can see in better detail all the fabulous knitting work on it, or maybe it’s crochet. I must apologise but I never thought to save the information where it came from and so am unable to give proper credit, if this is your work, please yell out and I will correct that.

I am entering this into the following challenges:-

Anything Goes Challenge Blog - #87 Make It Manly

Clearly Inspired - #69 Black and White with a Pop of Colour

Craft Room Challenge - Something For A Man

Creative Corner - Designer Papers

Creative Inspirations Paint - Inspired by: Anything Goes

Cupcake Inspirations - #200 Inspired by Cupcake Inspirations #94 I used the colours as my inspiration

Here Come the Boys - #47 No Stamps Allowed

Joanna Sheen - Layer It Up

Order of the Opus Gluei - #151 You Oughtta Be In Pictures (Easy Rider)

Totally Gorjuss - #173 Anything Goes with Pink

Lexi’s Creations 85 Easter

At Lexi’s Creations this time around, we would like to see your Easter creations. We are sponsored by My Heart Pieces.

I have used Lillie Under The Egg from Lexi herself, and I printed her onto watercolour card. I coloured her with DIs and just added a spot of glitter to the dots on her egg to highlight them.

The papers are all from the DCWV Nana’s Nursery Boy pad. The striped paper and the random dots paper are both very glittered but it’s not showing up here! The large die cut I used for a mat is a JoyCrafts Die and the lovely little bow beneath the daffodil is a memory box die.

There is a tiny piece of ribbon which has been in my stash forever behind the mat and image too.

I am entering this into the following:-

Avadares - #9 Easter or Spring

Avenue 613 - Anything Goes With Optional Tic, Tac, Toe (Diagonal left to right, free, digi image, ribbon)

Corrosive Challenge - #169 All That Glitters

Crafts 4 Eternity #113 Tic, Tac, Toe (Bottom Line - Layers, spots, yellow)

Cupcake Inspirations - #200 Inspired by Cupcake Inspirations 105 I used the little chick coming out of the egg as my inspiration

Eclectic Ellapu - Something for a Child

No Matter Which Challenges - #7 Anything Goes

Platypus Creek Digitals - #27 Easter

Robyn’s Fetish - #149 Easter

The Hybrid Chick Card Caravan Challenge - Fur Or Feather

 

ABC I for In Love

Our challenge for you at ABC this time is In Love. We are sponsored by Lili of the Valley, whose image I have used on my card, with a £10 gift voucher and by Stamp Fairy with a $10 gift voucher.

As I mentioned above I used a Lili of The Valley image for my card, called Love Balloon’. I coloured it with a combination of promarkers and copics. I am not sure if it’s obvious but I paper pieced her hat. I made a mistake colouring the hat as I mistook some of it for hair, and didn’t want to scrap the work I had put in so quickly stamped it again onto some Basic Grey Kissing Booth paper, I did the same with the balloon too. I used the ranger picket fence distress pen to colour some highlight onto the paper pieced balloon. All the papers are from Basic Grey’s Kissing Booth. The die is from Memory Box and the little shiny flowers and gems were in my stash, but I coloured them with Promarkers to match the colour palette on the card.

I am entering this into the following:-

Addicted to Stamps - Anything With Stamping on It

All That Scraps - Paper Piecing

Basic Grey - #88 Anything Goes

Charisma Cardz - #8 5 Different Patterned Papers (Hope it’s okay that they are all from the same paper pad, but there are 6 different papers from the Kissing Booth pad here)

Craft Us Crazy - #88 Anything Goes

Crafts and Me - #122 Dies or Punches

For Your Inspiration - #40 Inspired by a picture (I chose the shades of pink in the picture)

In The Pink - #14 Pink and Bling

Lady Anne’s Challenges - 6th Stamp Challenge

Stamp ’n’ Doodle - Use Two Different Punches or Dies

ABC I for In Love

Our challenge for you at ABC this time is In Love. We are sponsored by Lili of the Valley, whose image I have used on my card, with a £10 gift voucher and by Stamp Fairy with a $10 gift voucher.

As I mentioned above I used a Lili of The Valley image for my card, called Love Balloon’. I coloured it with a combination of promarkers and copics. I am not sure if it’s obvious but I paper pieced her hat. I made a mistake colouring the hat as I mistook some of it for hair, and didn’t want to scrap the work I had put in so quickly stamped it again onto some Basic Grey Kissing Booth paper, I did the same with the balloon too. I used the ranger picket fence distress pen to colour some highlight onto the paper pieced balloon. All the papers are from Basic Grey’s Kissing Booth. The die is from Memory Box and the little shiny flowers and gems were in my stash, but I coloured them with Promarkers to match the colour palette on the card.

I am entering this into the following:-

Addicted to Stamps - Anything With Stamping on It

All That Scraps - Paper Piecing

Basic Grey - #88 Anything Goes

Charisma Cardz - #8 5 Different Patterned Papers (Hope it’s okay that they are all from the same paper pad, but there are 6 different papers from the Kissing Booth pad here)

Craft Us Crazy - #88 Anything Goes

Crafts and Me - #122 Dies or Punches

For Your Inspiration - #40 Inspired by a picture (I chose the shades of pink in the picture)

In The Pink - #14 Pink and Bling

Lady Anne’s Challenges - 6th Stamp Challenge

Stamp ’n’ Doodle - Use Two Different Punches or Dies