CCM #224 Christmas

Out final challenge for 2018 at Crafty Cardmakers is a nice easy seasonal one of Christmas.

We also have a lovely prize on offer this time of a pair of Becky Seddon Christmas/winter themed stamps and also a pair of toning stencils.

My Christmas card is a combination of Sue Wilson dies, lots of glitter and foiling.

I started with an 8x8 card blank and matted onto it a slightly smaller silver glitter card layer. The decorative layer is using Sue’s snowflake striplet die which I went around a square shape four times to create a frame, cut from white pearlescent card.

I used this on a base of plain card approx 7” square with double sided adhesive sheet adhered to it and then carefully placed the lovely diecut frame over the adhesive. After I trimmed it up to size, I got three colours of very fine glitter from Tonertex and dusted them through the diecut areas to the sticky sheet beneath. There was glitter everywhere! When I thought I had covered all the sticky areas I eventually buffed it off to make it look as if the diecut layer was stuck onto the glitter layer, rather than the glitter was added to the diecut areas.

The centre I diecut a slightly smaller square of the same silver glitter card as the bottom layer.

The sentiment, also from Sue Wilson was created by using more of the double sided self adhesive sheet to plain card and using multi foils over the top in patchwork pieces. It is difficult to see what you will end up with until you die cut it and the excess foil that hasn’t stuck to the sheet falls away, as you have to overlay it whilst assembling. I then used the sentiment die and die cut it………. again this was quite a delicate task as it’s a very slender sentiment and it took me ages to whinkle it out of the die!

It’s finished off with Sue Wilson’s 2017 Angel at the side.

I am entering this into:-

Archi-Scraps – Dec: Anything Christmas
Bastel-Traum – #71 Winter/Christmas
Cards In Envy – The Spirit of Christmas
Card Mania – #111 Christmas
Christmas Crafts All Year Round – Dec: Anything Christmas Goes
Classic Design Team Challenge – #12 Anything Goes
Country View Crafts – Dec: Christmas
Crafty Calendar _ Dec: It’s Christmas Time
Crafty Friends – #98 Christmas
Crafty Hazelnut’s Christmas Challenge – #415 Christmas
Dare 2B Artzy – Dec: Winter
Die Cut Divas – Dec: Winter
Dies R Us – #110 Snowflakes
Eclectic Ellapu – Dec: Anything Festive
Happy Little Stampers – Dec: Anything Goes With Dies
Happy Little Stampers Christmas – Dec: Anything Christmas
Inkspirational – #175 Anything Christmas
Merry Little Christmas – #5 Anything Christmas Goes
Mix It Up – #20 Anything Goes Optional Twist No Stamping
Papercraft Business Challenge – #13 Dec: Anything Goes option Christmas
Paru’s Card Making Challenge – Dec: Christmas
Sheepski Designs – #21 Celebrations
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – Warm Winter Wishes
Sparkle and Sprinkle – Dec: Anything Goes with glitter
The 12 Months of Christmas – #48 Anything Goes Christmas

DV #192 Christmas

Good morning. Welcome to Dream Valley’s final challenge of the year, Christmas. We have lots of lovely sponsors this time around so please do go look at the blog and join in the fun to see what you might be able to win.

We have Fabrika Fantasy with 3 Digital Stamps, Sheepski Designs (my image is from them, called Snowboarding) with 3 Digital Stamps, All Dressed Up with 2 Digital Stamps, Paper Nest Dolls 3 Digital Stamps and Di’s Digis with a $12 voucher.

As I said above, I have used Snowboarding from Sheepski Designs for my card.

I coloured it with my copics and die cut it with a Crealies die. I used paper from my stash and white card to make my card, all diecut with the Crealies die. I ran the white layers and the image itself through a snow embossing folder. I have a few snow embossing folders but this one is my favourite because of the lovely larger drops of snow. Some of them only have small dots of snow.

To finish it off I have a sentiment from Craftwork Cards and some tiny snowflake peel offs.

Does anyone know of a set of SMALL and I do mean small snowflake dies? I can’t seem to find anything smaller than 2cms for the smallest die (Sizzix Tim Holtz mini Snowflakes). I would like some lovely delicate ones for this type of card.

All of us at Dream Valley wish all of you out there a very Merry Christmas and a Healthy, Happy 2019.

I am entering this into:-

Addicted to Stamps – #169 Christmas Non Traditional Colours
Archi-Scraps – Dec: Anything Christmas
Aud Sentiments – #217 Christmas or Winter Sentiment
Aurora Wings – #73 Holiday Spirit
Card Mania – #111 Christmas
Craft Rocket – #54 Christmas is Coming
Crafty Hazelnut’s Patterned Paper – Dec: Anything Goes
Die Cut Divas – Dec: Winter
Dies R Us – #110 Snowflakes
Double Trouble Challenge – #16 Let The Troubles Begin (both embossing
and snow)
Paper Players – #421 It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas
Paru’s Card Making Challenge – Dec: Christmas
Pile it On – #149 Shaped Cards
Whoopsi Daisy – Dec: Anything Goes Option Let It Snow

CCM #223 Anything But A Card

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers, and hosted by Angela, is Anything but a Card.

I made two sleighs, a large one and a smaller one.

Both started off as plain mdf, the rails of which I painted with silver acrylic paint. On both of them I covered the main body of the sleigh with some lovely foiled paper I have had in a stash since forever!

I glittered the edges of both sleighs with red glitter glue to hide anywhere my cutting out might not have been up to scratch, and also to give them a more Christmassy feel.

I used various Christmas berry picks and clusters to decorate them, along with poinsettia fabric flowers and metal snowflakes. The smaller sleigh was filled with cinnamon sticks and pine cones, dipped in gesso and glitter to simulate snow.

Both sleighs were glued down onto some old scraps of a cardboard box which I gessoed and the covered with artificial snow, mixed in with transparent mica flakes and glitter. The Reindeer were just painted brown and darker brown for their antlers.

The most difficult thing I found was attaching the reins, which just kept slipping off as they were just a soft silk thread.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of them both together to show the different size scale of them, and one has been sent to my Daughter for a decoration for her house.

A Inky Mess – #26 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Alphabet Challenge – R is for Reindeer
Bastel-Traum – #71 Winter/Christmas
Challenge Up Your Life – #101 Winter Animals
Craft Rocket Challenge – #54 Christmas Is Coming
Crafteezee – Nov: Anything But a Card
Crafty Hazelnut’s Patterned Paper – Nov: Anything Goes with Patterned Paper
Creative Craft Cottage – #113 Christmas is Coming
Creative Knockouts – #273 Snow Much Fun
Daisy Chain Challenges – #25 Christmas/Winter
Fabrika Fantasy – #26 Christmas/Winter
Hiding In My Craft Room – #'380 Any Holiday
Rhedd’s Creative Challenge – Nov: Anything Mixed Media
We Love2Create – #14 Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes

DV #191 No Square or Rectangle Cards

We are sponsored today by StarStampz for our No Square or Rectangle Cards challenge.

I have used their lovely image Winter Kiss, for my Snowglobe shaped card.

This lovely shaped card has the added advantage of being one of the smallest Christmas cards ever.. without the snowflakes around the edge it would be a perfect fit for C7 envelope.

The snowglobe die is from Craftwork Cards, exclusively available these days through Craft Stash. The overlay on the bottom also makes a stand if added to the back and it stands very well!

I printed the image up quite large to make it easier to colour and then when it was finished I scanned it in and shrunk it to fit the snowglobe centre. That’s one of the advantages of digital images you can do so much more with them. After I had printed and die cut it to fit the snowglobe I ran it through a ‘snow’ embossing folder, and then I went over the embossed snowdrops with a white sharpie and finally glittered them.

The main part of the card and the base are cut from various metallic card in my stash and the sentiment is cut from glitter card, as are the snowflakes.

I am entering this into:-

613 Avenue Create – #215 Anything Goes Optional Twist Christmas
Angie’s Digital Stamps – #26 Anything Goes, Optional Twist Christmas
CCC Digi Creations – #98 Winter Time
Christmas Card Throwdown – Nov: Snow Globes
Creative Craft Cottage – #213 Christmas Is Coming
Daisy Chain Challenges – #25 Christmas/Winter
Digi Doodle Studios – #11 Christmas/Winter
Fabrika Fantasy – #26 Christmas/Winter
Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge - Nov: Anything Goes
My Time to Craft – #384 Let It Snow
Sheepski Designs – #20 anything Christmas
Sweet Stampers – #26 Christmas
Stamping Sensations – Nov: Get Ready for Christmas

CCM 222 Lots of Layers

Judy is hosting our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers and she has chosen Lots of Layers as her theme.

My card was made on behalf of my Daughter for her Husband for his birthday.

My base layer and the blue diecuts are from some turquoise mirri card. The cogs and ornate scroll cog die are from Sue Wilson. The clock, which was cut from the same turquoise card and then had several different embossing powders added to it to give it an aged patina look, is a Marianne die. The hands and other of the cogs were cut from purple mirri card. The background paper is from a Prima pad, Epiphany. the brick cut out is from a Tim Holtz media die, and I backed it iwth more purple mirri. The sentiments are mainly Crafters Companion.

The image is from Kanban, and I coloured it with Kurecolor brush pens and then fussy cut it out and added it on foam tape.

I am entering this into:-

A Bit More Time To Craft – #79 Anything Goes
Archi-Scraps – Nov: Use Stone or Brick Textures
Challenge Up Your Life – #100 Celebrate/Anniversary (Birthday?)
Crafting By Designs – Nov: anything goes
Crafting With An Attitude – #45 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – Nov: #57 Anything Goes
Die Cut Divas – Nov: Anything Goes
Dragonfly Dreams – Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers – Nov: Anything Goes With Dies
Pattie’s Creations – #152 Birthdays
Sandee and Amelie’s Steampunk Challenge – Steampunk Winter Special Challenge 2019
The Artistic Stamper – Nov: Square It
The Crafter’s Cafe – #207 Male (Young or Old)

DV #190 Use Dies and Punches

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is to use your dies and punches. We are sponsored by

I started with a blank Graphic 45 Staples Large Tag in Ivory for the back layer, which I edged with a few different alchemy waxes. However, in the end when I went to put it together there wasn’t enough contrast between the main layer and the base so I gessoed over it! Hey these Graphic 45 tags aren’t cheap, I wasn’t going to throw it away!

The butterfly is a die from Sheena Douglass and I cut and embossed it and then covered it in water before adding three shades of Aqua Flow pens from Tonic in the blue/green range and one in the yellow range. I then added a layer of midas gold aqua flow which gives a lovely gold sparkle.

The top layer of the tag I cut out with the Graphic 45 Large Tag die, sized to fit perfectly over their staples tags. I die cut this in turquoise, but again in the event I decided it was too dark as turquoise and went over the whole thing with a wash of Inka Gold wax in Mint Green. BUT before all that. I embossed the cut out tag with a script embossing folder from Crafters Companion. I added patches of various different colour Pentart Wazes in a bright pink, purple, orange, yellow and lime!. As I said though, the fact the background had been turquoise was still showing through too darkly so I did the Mint Green wash over the top of it all. The photograph isn’t that good, but you can still see all the lovely colours underneath, but now it goes with the butterfly much better than before.

You can see the sparkle better in this picture, and also the underlying colours.

I added various cogs/gears from several different dies – Tim Holtz and sue Wilson I think, two metal keys and three diecut sentiments from Spellbinders, which look a bit like those old Dymo Labelmakers in that they emboss the word, which I then went over with a purple inkpad from Wendy Vecchi. The ribbons and yarns are from my stash, as are the gems on the butterfly..

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – #20 Anything Goes with A Critter
A Perfect Time to Craft – #11 anything Goes
Classic Design Team Challenge – #11 Anything Goes
CraftaholicsRUs – Oct: Tag Challenge
Crafteezee – Nov: Anything But a Card
Crafts Galore Encore – Nov: #57 Anything Goes
Creatalicious – #150 Anything Goes with Optional Embossing
Createful Heart – #2 Add A Sentiment
Just Keep On Creating – Nov: Anything Goes
LeAnn’s World 101 – #8 Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #93 Anything Goes
Love To Craft – Nov: #28 Anything Goes
Not Just Cards – Oct: Anything Goes
Rhedd’s Creative Spirit – Nov: Anything Goes
We Love 2 Create – #14 Anything Mixed Media

CCM #221 Explosion of Colour

Today at Crafty Cardmakers the lovely Angela is hosting our Explosion of Colour challenge.

My ‘explosion’ is in my Art Journal. I started with a page that I had mopped up some blue colour with from a gel print. And then I just added random colours to the page. In the middle it looked a little muddy as I had gone a step too far and not wanting to just abandon it I decided to stencil the face into the middle. I then gessoed out the face area and all her features until it was back to a reasonably blank area and re-stencilled in the features. The Stencil is from Jane Davenport from her Jane Girls series from Artist Cellar. I coloured her face with three portrait colours from IndigoBlu’s acrylic paint range, Porcelain, Fair and Mid Beige. Her cheeks, lips and eyes were all coloured with Jane’s Lip and Pastel Palettes Tins.

The purple diecuts are also from Jane’s range, Artomology, You Are Unique, dies, and I coloured the insides of these with Sakura Koi pens.

Her hair is a selection of Heartfelt Creations Wildwood Blossoms stamps and dies, which I stamped onto some Distress Oxide blended cards. Their centres are from a range called Nail Art which I got in Poundland for a quid! Bargain, when you think what micro beads and prills cost!

All the coloured bits around the edge are also from Jane’s range of stamps, Flower Girls. I used just the hairstyles of two of the girls to add the interest at the edges and coloured them with Sakura Koi pens.

As you can see in the closer pic below, drawing is not my strong suit. The eyes don’t look right and I can’t quite put my finger on why, but as I couldn’t correct it even if I did know I guess that’s what makes her unique!!

Finally I added some Midas Touch to the eye shadows and lips, and some white highlights to the eyes and lips. I did splatter midas touch across the piece, before I did the stencilling in the middle, but sadly the camera doesn’t seem to pick this up without extreme difficulty!

I am entering her into:-

A Inky Mess – #25 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Altered Eclectics – Oct: Anything Mixed Media Goes
Back to Basics – #14 Stencils or Masks
Catch The Bug – Anything But A Card
Colour Crazy Craft Challenge – #43 Anything Goes with colouring
Create A Smile – Create your Own Background
Creativ Fusion Arts & Crafts – #5 Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #92 Anything Goes
Love to Create – #13 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Not Just Cards – Oct: Anything Goes
Polkadoodles – #43 Anything Goes
Rhedd’s Creative Spirit – Oct: Anything Goes
The Corrosive Challenge – #10 Oct: Anything Goes
The Crafters Cafe – #206 Feminine
Worldwide Open Design Team Chall – #10 Oct: Anything Goes

DV #187 Pearls or Gems

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is to use your pearls or gems. We are sponsored by the boss, Marlene with a cute animal sheet of stamps.

I would like to apologise to Marlene and the rest of the hard working team for being so absent the last few months. I have been struggling with health issues and have lacked the energy to create. Hopefully I have turned a bit of a corner and am feeling a bit more like my old self.

My card was made with Pixie Powders for the background. There is a lovely shimmer to it, but sadly it never gets picked up on camera. The diecut is from Our Daily Bread and is called Quatrefoil. When I chose it I intended to pop pearls where the patterns meet each other but in the event it looked too crowded!

My flowers were cut from the spare background I created earlier using Heartfelt Creations Striped Sun Kissed Fleur stamps which I stamped and embossed with Pure White Embossing Powder from Cosmic Shimmer and then die cut with their matching die. I then popped them through the 3d Floral Basics Shaping Mold, having first spritzed them a little with water. This was the first time I used the mold. It has given the flowers some lovely dimension and having spritzed them first they now seem to be more sturdy/robust! The leaves are from Spellbinders. The gems are a combination of gems from my stash, and I trimmed down a 6” square scalloped card to make a more rectangular shape to go with the main diecut area.

I am entering this into:-

Back to Basics - #12 Inky Backgrounds
CCC Digi Creations - #96 Use Pearls or Gems
Crafting with Dragonflies - #113 Anything Goes (Cards only)
Digistamps4Joy #152 - Anything Goes with option Flower Frenzy
Get Creative - #73 Lots of Bling and Sparkle
Happy Little Stampers - Sept: Anything Goes with Dies
Scrapbook Stamp Society - #150 Embossing Wet or Dry
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Bling It On
Sparkles Monthly - #108 Dies or Punches
Sweet Stampin’ - Dies/Punches

CCM #218 Autumn Colours

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Autumn Colours. As usual you can enter anything you like, cards, mixed media, home decor, fabric crafts, you name it, we are happy to see it.

Autumn is my favourite time of year for colour. I love the rich hues of reds and oranges. Not so keen on the Autumn bugs though. I am just on the end of the cold virus from hell. I thought it was never going to leave me, for the best part of two weeks I have felt like death warmed over. Today is the first day I have felt half human again.

I created my birthday card from just a couple of items. For the decorative centre panel I laid down several different reels of washi tape, and then die cut the word birthday into the panel, in effect this would be the waste. The word I die cut out can be saved for another project. I backed and matted the panel with black card and to make the word pop I die cut the word again in white and used the waste from inside the word to add back into the die cut area in the panel. I stamped a Dylusions edge stamp a couple of times either side of the panel, and the word wishes onto a small scrap of white to finish it all off.

I am entering this into:-

Always Fun Challenges - #76 Fall Colours
Aud Sentiments - #212 Fall and a Sentiment
Cards in Envy - Feels Like Fall
Createful Heart Design - #1 Autumn/Fall
Cut It Up - #156 Birthday
Cute Card Thursday - #547 Dies and Punches
Di’s Digi Challenge - Happy Fall Y’all
Dragonfly Journeys - #127 Fall Festival of Colours
Fabrika Fantasy - #24 Autumn
Happy Little Stampers - Sept: Anything Goes With Dies
House of Cards - Group 2 Sept: Birthday
Make My Monday - #80 Autumn/Fall Colours
Scrap From Your Heart - #25 Autumn Colours
Sieze The Birthday - Die Cuts or Punches
The Crafter’s Cafe - #204 Autumn and/or Spring

CCM #217 All Creatures Great and Small

Hi. Hope you can join us over on Crafty Cardmakers today for our latest challenge, All Creatures Great and Small.

I made my card with one of my favourite ever stamps, Cecil The Cow. I just love his quirky look from his long neck to his dotty boots! I stamped Cecil onto tissue paper and coloured him with various Zig Clean Colour Brush Markers.

My card itself was made with a Tonic die, Bowscale, and the various mats and layers with created with Sue Wilson’s Double Pierced Rectangle dies.

The lovely morroccan style background was stamped onto watercolour card with a Hero Arts Studio Calico Stamp, Lattice Background with a versamark pad and embossed with white detail powder from Stampendous. I randomly coloured each of the little patterns with different colours of the Zig Pens and then spritzed heavily with water. Some of it was left to dry reasonably naturally and some of it I went over with a kitchen roll to mop up the excess moisture which had the effect of leaving different gradients of the colours, and of course, some colours intermingled even across the embossed lines.

Cecil was then trimmed out of the tissue paper and stuck down to the background with modpodge. The happy birthday sentiment is a die in my stash, but sadly I cannot remember which one it is!

I am entering Cecil into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies - #18 Anything with a Critter
Always Happy Birthday - Sept: Anything Birthday
Artistic Inspirations Challenge - #206 Anything Goes
Crafty Friends Challenge - #91 Animals/Birds
Creative Craft Cottage - #110 No Patterned Paper
Heartful Stamping - Anything Goes and A Stamp
House of Cards - Sept: Birthday
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Stamp It On
Sparkles Monthly - #107 Stamp Your Own Background
Stamping Sensations - Sept: Something Beginning with B (Background stamp and Birthday Card)
Sunny Day Crafting - Aug-Sept: Animal

CCM #215 At Least Two Dies or Punches

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers today is to use at least two dies or punches, or one of each.

My image is from a lush paper pad by Katy Sue from their Mermaids range, which I die cut with Sue Wilson’s new Festive Frames, Eve, die, that in turn was matted onto the outside die from the same set which I cut from plain white card.

The background was created with my favourite My Favourite Things stamp background, Whimsical Waves. I stamped it with versamark onto the same white card I die cut the outer frame from and embossed in clear powder. I then used a combination of Spectrum Sparkle and Tonic Aquaflow pens and a spritzer to create a underwater background. I fussy cut out the mermaid, sentiment and the three patterned fishes from the same pad as the original image. The two shimmery fish just peeking out from beneath the diecut frame, and the tiger shark are all tiny die cuts by Marianne Designs. I edged the background with a green copic marker to give the illusion of a thin mat, and decoupaged up the extra elements of the image. A sprinkling of glamour dust around the water elements of the image and the mermaids tail completed the design.

I have a second picture to show the shimmer, as it doesn’t show up well on the camera in the normal light!

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies - #16 Anything Goes with a Critter
Animals Friends - #64 July In or On The Water
Blank Page Muse - June: Let’s Go To The Beach
Card Mania - #106 Anything Goes
City Crafter - #418 Seaside
Classic Design Team - #27 Anything Goes
Crafty Friends - #87 Fairy And/Or Fantasy
Cupcake Inspirations - #449 Under The Sea
Kitty Bee Designs - #121 Under The Sea
Pause, Dream, Enjoy - #26 Mermaids

DV #182 All Things Bright and Beautiful

Welcome to Dream Valley’s challenge for the next two weeks, All Things Bright and Beautiful. Today’s challenge is just for fun, as there is no actual prize.

I started with a blank sheet of Clarity 7” Stencil card, and a blank sheet of Crafters Companion A4 black card, a sheet of scrap card., some Tim Holtz dies and some Spellbinders Border dies.

With the scrap card and border dies I cut two fancy edges, which I then taped down over the stencil card to create my own stencilled shape between 1/3 and half way up.

Using Distress Oxides I inked in between my two edges making my own stencilled shape.

Then I stamped some random stamps from Marianne’s texture range.

The little pot with the wildflower is from Tim Holtz, and was lurking in my spare diecuts box. I liked the plain black against the brightly coloured shape. I originally stamped the clarity Congratulations stamp directly onto the card but it fell off the block and made a mess, so I stamped a second time and faux matted it up by going around the trimmed out sentiment with black ink.

I’m entering this into:-

Addicted to Stamps - #297 Make Your Mark
Aud Sentimenys - #206 Anything Goes + A Sentiment
CAS-ual Fridays - #202 Inspiration Photo (the bright colours)
Crafting With An Attitude - #40 Anything Goes
Crafty Catz - #422 Anything Goes option Beautiful Blooms
Create a Smile - Moodboard (I chose the colour palette)
Create and Inspire - #75 Anything Goes
Dare2BArtzy - June: Bright Colours
Inkspirational - #163 Use Small Stamps
Less Is More - #374 Bits Box Items
Sheepski Designs - #15 Embellish It or CAS
Simon Says Wednesday - Bright and Cheerful
Simply Papercraft - #58 Anything Goes

CCM #214 Wet or Dry Embossing

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Wet or Dry Embossing. You can enter any project you like, it doesn’t have to just be a card, as long as you have some wet or dry embossing on it somewhere.

I decided to go for both on my card.

My dry embossing is the white panel behind the die cut elements, it’s a Sue Wilson Pinpoint Embossing Folder called Cross Stitch.

My wet embossing is the flower design die cut. I stamped it in three different shades of Tonic Nuvo Inks, but because these dry fast and aren’t really suitable for embossing I decided to try to let those inks dry and them emboss over the top with versamark. Before the various stamping platforms were released (I have the Tim Holtz one), this would not really have been possible. But because I could leave my image exactly where it was and let it dry and then apply versamark to my stamp and restamp over the already coloured image it worked a treat. I was originally going to colour the flowers in but changed my mind as I liked the outline look instead.

The stamp has a matching die  and I used that to cut two green mirri shapes and then used the decorative element to that die to give a lovely lacey effect.

The centres of the dies are from Spellbinders, the two white centres, and the green mirri ones are from a Marianne die set.

The sentiment is, I think, Penny Black, but I couldn’t swear to it, lol.

I am entering this into:-

Allsorts - #472 Use At Least 2 Dies
Back To Basics and Beyond - #5 Heat Embossing
CCEE Stampers - #1824 Blooming Flowers
Color Throwdown - #497 (Couldn’t see that I had to use all four colours! If that’s not correct just delete me)
Crafty Calendar - June: Use 3 of Something
Creatalicious - #141 Anything Goes With Optional Flowers
Dragonfly Dreams - Anything Goes
Happy Little Stampers - June: Anything Goes With Dies
Heartful Stamping - Anything Goes + a Stamp
Just Add Ink - #413 Colour
Penny Black and More - June: In The Garden
The Crafty Addicts - #49 Say It With Flowers

DV #181 Add Some Bling

Today at Dream Valley we are sponsored by Dies to Die For with a lovely £15 voucher for the winner, and our challenge is to add some bling.

I started with a lovely new stamp from Craft Buddy’s Gem It range. I did think I didn’t like the idea of specific stamps designed to add gems to but this feather is just so ethereal I fell in love with it. As you can see I didn’t add gems to every little circle. I inked it up with Tonic’s Nuvo Hybrid ink in four different shades as I had intended originally to add some pixie powders to the background, but I loved it on just a plain background so I could have used different inks!

The image is matted onto purple mirri paper and then onto a green satin mirri card. The gems are coloured with copics to tone in with the Inkpad shades and the sentiment is cut from the same paper/card I used for the mats and layers. I used the fabulous Sticky Roll from Wild Spider to back the paper and make the sentiments sticky. I was concerned it might make these small sentiments more difficult to cut but they still cut like a dream and it was so easy to stick them down. No more messy glued fingers and blobs of glue appearing where I don’t want them!

A close up pic so you can see how ‘blingy’ it is.

I am entering this into:-

A Bit More Time to Craft - #69 Anything Goes
A Perfect Time to Craft - #06 Anything Goes
Classic Design Team Challenge - #26 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore - June: Anything Goes
Dare 2B Artzy - June: Bright Colours
Eclectic Ellapu - June: Anything Goes
Heartful Stamping - June: Anything Goes and A Stamp
Love To Craft - #23 Anything Goes
SheepSki Designs - #15 Embellish It or CAS
Stamping Sensations - June: Anything Goes
The Color Sisters - #56 Colour Palette
The Corrosive Challenge - June: Anything Goes

DV #179 Summer Colours

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is Summer Colours. We are sponsored by Star Stampz.

At the time I was preparing this post it feels like Winter still here in Hampshire and I still have my heating on in early May!!!! Anyhow, hopefully by the time this is published it will be feeling at least like Spring.

EDIT; Spring has finally sprung!!! Thank goodness.

As soon as I saw this image I imagined her floating away over a rainbow, and I had just the perfect die to match my thoughts. I diecut the colours of the rainbow with Sue Wilson’s You are my Sunshine rainbow die and the Sun is also from Sue’s Rain or Shine, part of the same Necessities collection. The clouds are from Memory Box. The sentiment I printed myself and the background paper is from Wild Rose Studio from their Blackberry Lane pad.

The image was coloured with a combination of Copics for the hair and skin and Zig Clean Colour Brush pens. Unfortunately I went over the balloons with some varnish in a pen and it bled the colour of the orange balloon onto the tip of the green one! I guess because the colours are water based it shifted. And after all that there isn’t even any ‘wet look/shine’ from the varnish which is what I was trying to achieve!

I am entering this into:-

A Perfect Time to Craft - #5 Anything Goes
Crafting With Friends - #67 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore - May: Anything Goes
Crafty Hazelnut’s Patterned Paper - May. Anything goes with Patterned Paper
Creative Craft Cottage - #107 Dies and/or Punches
Fab ‘n Funky - #393 Garden Or Outdoors
Happy Little Stamper - May: Anything Goes With Dies
Jo’s Scrap Shack - #233 Anything Goes
Love to Craft - #22 May: Anything Goes
Pause, Dream, Enjoy - #19 Anything Goes
Tic, Tac, Toe - #46 Centre Line - Scene, Red, Something Digital

CCM #211 No Patterned Paper

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is No Patterned Paper. Please stop by the team’s blogs and leave them some love.

I started with a blank A3 white card which I created an approx A5 landscape card blank from. I stencilled onto that from an Imagination Crafts A4 stencil called Distressed Letter using Wilted Violet, Shaded Lilac, Broken China and Cracked Pistachio Distress Oxides. The blue/green frame is an Intricutz die, cut out of mirri card.

The feathers were a lot of fun to create. They are from Chocolate Baroque from their I shall Be Your Wings stamp sheet. There are several different styles and sizes of feathers and these two are sort of zentangled. I wanted to use the Colourcraft Soft Relief paste to make some textural feathers, but I wanted them to be multicoloured instead of the plain pearl of the paste, so before applying the paste I spritzed each stamp with water and then added some pixie powders. At this stage the stamps were very wet and I wasn’t sure that the paste would ever dry applying it to wet stamps so I mopped a little of the coloured water up with kitchen roll. In hindsight it might have been better to have made a paint from the powders and applied that as it would not have been so wet I think.

Anyhow I then added the paste with a palette knife, spread reasonably thinly and left to dry. Because it’s so hot at the moment it was dry in about 12 hours, but I’m guessing it would normally take closer to 48 hours. At that stage you bend the stamp a little and peel off the set paste and this is what I got.

As you can see, at this stage they were very pale and there were some areas where there was no colour at all. Whilst the paste was drying a lot of the colour leeched right through to the reverse side, the non patterned side of the paste feathers. So as I had wanted them to be much brighter I used my versamark pen and instead added some Cosmic Shimmer sparkle pigments in similar shades to the Pixie Powders I used to start with.

This is what they looked like after - I forgot to take a pic until they were on the card!

As you can see, they were now much, much brighter, much more what I was after.

The final part of the card is a sentiment, ‘A Heart Without Dreams is like a Bird without feathers’ from the same stamp sheet which I stamped with Kaleidacolor Riviera inkpad.

The feathers and sentiment were backed with foam tape to give them a little height.

I am entering this into:-

A Inky Mess - #20 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Artistic Inspirations - #199 Anything Goes
Calling All Sistahs - #12 Encouragement Card
Classic Design Team - #25 Open Challenge
Creatalicious Challenges - #138 Anything Goes, Option Add a Sentiment
Create and Inspire - #73 Anything Goes, Option use a stencil
Creative Artiste - #38 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Heartful Stamping - #38 Anything Goes + a Stamp
Just For Fun Rubber Stamps - May: Use More Than One Stamp
Polkadoodles - #18 Anything Goes
Quick Quotes - #87 Add A 3D element (feathers are VERY dimensional)
Stamping Sensations - May: Close to Nature
Stamps & Stencils - Let’s Fake It (clearly my feathers are not real!)
Use Your Stuff - #310 Mood Board (Bottom Left bird, or rather his feathers!)
We Love 2 Create - #8 Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes

DV #178 Ribbon and/or Lace

Our challenge at Dream Valley today is to use ribbon and/or lace on your project. We are sponsored by Sheepski Designs and I have used their lovely image Perfect Pointe for my card.

I printed her onto some lightweight card and coloured her in with a combination of Copics, and Ecoline waterbrush pens.

I matted the diecut image onto Sue Wilson’s Poppy diecut which I cut from some lovely handmade paper which I have had in my stash for at least 15 years!! That in turn was matted onto some other handmade paper in complimentary colour to the ones in the image. Then the whole lot was matted onto some card and I can’t remember where that came from! The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards’ Year of Sentiments diecut pad, and I edged it with tiny coloured resin flowers. The lace ribbon was white, but I coloured it with the same Ecoline pen I used in the image, and then threaded through some blue satin ribbon.

I am entering this into:-

Artistic Inspirations - #199 Anything Goes
Back To Basics - #1 Matting and Layering
Creates and Makes - #21 Anything Goes
Dare2BArtzy - April: Pastel Colours
Fussy and Fancy - #210 Add A Diecut
Stamping Sensations - April: One for the Girls
Star Stampz - Hand Coloured Image
The Paper Shelter - #336 Die Cuts

CCM #210 Birthdays

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers today, hosted by me, is Birthdays. I chose the theme because today is my Sister’s Birthday. I won’t divulge her age, but she’s older than me….. in your face Sis!!! LOL - All the while we were growing up she used to say ‘when your as old as me’ as a way to prevent me doing something I wanted to do…. and naturally bragging about her seniority, well then you get over a certain age and you would kill to be the younger one. I created my own card blank with the Tonic dies, Bowscale. The matting and layering levels were various purple cardstock in my stash, but the background layer is from Heartfelt Creations’ Sugar Hollow collection paper pad.

The focal point is one of the stamps and dies, which I cut and coloured with copics. The sentiment comes from Craftwork Cards preprinted and die cut sentiments, and the flowers are also from Heartfelt Creations, Ariana Blooms. The corner die, again from Heartfelt is Fleur Borders and Pockets dies. I added glitter accents to all the flowers, including the blossom in the tree.

The little owls in this set are so cute, and the stamps match the dies so well.

I am entering this into:-

Always Happy Birthday - April
Aud Sentiments - #201 Happy Birthday
CCC Digi Creations - #91 Include An Animal
Craft Rocket - #47 Flowers
Crafting With Dragonflies - #102 Cards Using Dies and/or Punches
Crafty Friends - #82 Flowers
Di’s Digi Challenge - Include an Animals
Fashionable Stamping - #134 Animals
Fussy and Fancy - #210 Add a Die Cut
Sieze The Birthday - Vibrant Colours (opted to just go birthday)
Simon Says Stamp Weds Chall - Sparkle and Shine
Simply Create Too - #137 Use Die Cuts
The Paper Shelter - #335 A Birthday Card
Try It On Tuesday - Nature’s Beauty

DV #177 2 Or More Buttons

Our challenge at Dream Valley this week is to use 2 or more buttons in your project. We are sponsored by All Dressed Up and I have used one of their older designs ‘Love to Shop Girl 1’, which I coloured with copics.

I made my tag background by covering a manilla number 8 tag in patterned paper, you can just see it through the next layer. The next layer was made from some tissue type paper that came as a protective layer with some clothes. I do have rice paper, but thought I would try an experiment to see if stuff I would normally discard would work as well! This was the mopping up from another project that consisted of blues and pinks, which I put to one side to possibly use later. This paper seems considerably more fragile and prone to tearing than rice paper does, but once dried it did ‘firm up’ I applied it over my patterned paper layer with pva glue.

After it dried I stencilled the word Perfect and the stars and distressed harlequins with three shades of Pentart glitter pastes. I inked around the edges of my tag with Broken China oxide. The buttons, and ribbon bits that I stapled on, came from my stash, as did the dazzler flower and the thread I used in my buttons.

I fussy cut the image and popped her on with some foam tape.

This is the packing tissue before, and what was left after I took out the piece I used on the tag. As you can see, it’s not as strong and does tear easily, so maybe mop up in layers and let it dry out a little in between.

  

I am entering this into:-

A Inky Mess - #19 Anything Mixed Media Goes
All Dressed Up - #80 Anything Goes
Altered Eclectics - April: Anything Mixed Media Goes
Artistic Inspirations - #198 Anything Goes
Crafting By Designs - Elegant Ladies
Create and Inspire - #73 Anything Goes, Option use stencils
Creative Artiste - #37 Anything Mixed Media Goes
My Creative Scoop Color Inspiration Monthly - Anything Hand Coloured Goes
Naughty or Nice - #50 Use a Past Theme I chose #19 Ribbon
Simon Says Wednesday - Add Some Texture
Stamping Sensations - April: One for the Girls
We Love 2 Create - #7 Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes