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