DV #150 Add Some Metal

Our challenge today over at Dream Valley is to add some metal. We are sponsored by Starz Stampz.

My metal is in the centre behind my image and started off life as a can of Diet Coke

I carefully cut off the top and bottom of the can. At this stage it is VERY easy to cut yourself so be careful. I then flattened it out under some heavy weights. I actually have a pile of this stuff, cut and flattened and ready for use because I find it takes quite a while to get the curve out of the can.

I diecut an oval to match the coloured matting and then put it through the BigShot with an embossing folder, and finally coloured it with alcohol inks.

My image is from Kenny K, Veruca Venom, and I coloured her skin with copics and the rest of her with polychromos pencils. I also added the clear sakura jelly roll pen to her boots to make them look like patent leather.

My patterned paper is the Viola set from WRMK, the bow is from Memory Box and the plain matting papers were from my stash, along with the heart brad and gold tinted centura pearl card I used to create the card base.

I am entering this into:-

A Gem of a Challenge - #188 Your Favourite Colour Combo
Brown Sugar - #238 Birthday
Craft For the Craic - Feb: Something with 2 on It (2 diffrent types of media, paper and metal to create the layers)
Creative Artiste - #23 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Dragonfly Journeys - #86 Bodacious Bows
Happy Little Stampers - Feb: Anything Goes With Dies
Hiding In My Craft Room - #289 Embossing
International Art & soul - #2 Recycling (Coke Can)
Moving Along With The Times - #39 For a Man
The Corrosive Challenge - #2 Feb: Anything Goes
Your Next Stamp - #58 Sketch and Colour Challenge

CCM #181 Love, Love, Love

It’s my turn to host over at Crafty Cardmakers and today I have picked the theme of Love…… As Valentine's Day is just a couple of weeks away now is the time to make something special for the one you love, or just for someone in love!

I have gone for my favourite Lili of The Valley stamp. The wedding’s colour theme was purple, so I coloured it in greys and mauves with my copics.

I used a Crafters Companion embossing folder for a panel behind the main image and the sentiment comes from Craftwork Cards year of sentiments pad. I placed the heart panel into the inside of Chloe Endean’s Christmas stamp! I only inked up the frame edge of the stamp and embossed it with a sparkly powder, but I wasn’t satisfied there was enough bling, so I went around the inside edge with a glue pen and added glitter to that. Both the image panel and the outside panel were edged with a purple copic to tone in with the image. A couple of gems and that cute little arrow and heart charm finished it off.

I am entering this into:-

Allsorts - #400 Let’s Celebrate
Bastel-Traum - #49 Friendship/Love
Brown Sugar - #235 Anything Goes
CAS on Sunday - #100 Hearts
Come and Get It - 3 or more Layers
C.R.A.F.T. - #400 Love/Valentines/Anniversary
Crafty Purple Frog - New Beginnings
Daisy Chain - #4 Add Some Sparkle
DigiDesigns - All about Love
Dragon’s Lair - Jan: New Beginnings
Simply Create Too - #123 New Beginnings

DV #148 All About Love

I can’t believe we are three weeks into the New Year and already thinking about a date in February! I swear the older you get the faster the time spins past.

Anyhow our challenge at Dream Valley today is All About Love. We are sponsored by Pink Gem Designs and I chose to use Chloe With Daisy for my ‘love’ themed card.

I coloured her with copics and prisma pencils, and used a sharpie white pen for highlights in her hair and to make the butterflies pop a little in her hair.

My frame was created by cutting an oval from the centre of a previously embossed piece which I had embossed in white, with Sue Wilson’s Noble Oval dies. I coloured the white embossed hearts with Dr. PH Martin’s Bombay Inks with a colour I made myself by mixing a blue green, blue and white together. I also die cut an oval out of purple mirri, which I then used to cut the Valentine message from as well.

The background paper is from Craftwork Card’s Refresher pad, one of my favourite pads because the colours are so fresh and zingy and remind me of the way those Refresher chews taste when the sherbet explodes on your tongue!

I edged both the frame and BP with glamour dust and then added three dragonflies cut from another pattern in the Refresher pad, and glamour dusted them also.

I’m entering this into:-

A Gem of a Challenge - #186 Hearts and/or Flowers
Addicted to Stamps - #225 Photo Inspiration (I chose the daisy as my inspiration)
Allsorts - #399 Daisy, Daisy
Crafty Gals - #106 Add a Heart
Cute Card Thursday - #461 Cool Colours/Tones
Let’s Craft and Create - #121 Things With Wings

CCM #180 New Beginnings

Our first challenge for 2017 at Crafty Cardmakers is New Beginnings. We want to see your creations related to new beginnings, that might be the arrival of a baby, a new relationship, marriage, engagement, a new year's resolution even!

I have gone for a baby card! I was going to go for something very arty to do with resolutions BUT that went out the window when I went down with that awful chest thing that has been doing the rounds. I am still coughing, although not as badly, and my ribs no longer feel like they have been bruised really badly when I do. So anyhow I plumped for the easier alternative and made a baby card. I have deliberately made it multi-coloured so it will suit the sex of any possible new baby who might arrive in the year!

My patterned paper is from an old DCWV stack called Nanna’s Nursery. All the little elements, apart from the star, also from Nanna’s Nursery, were cut from the same slightly pearlescent white card I used to mat and layer behind my patterned shadow frame, and then I coloured them all separately by hand.

My ‘new’ also applies to all the dies, which are having their first outing here and, apart from the stars, they are all from Sue Wilson.

I am entering this into:-

A Gem Of A Challenge - #185 Something New
CCC Digi Creations - Die cuts and/or Punches
Craft Rocket - #30 Something New
Crafts and Me - New Beginning/New Stash
Crafty Friends - #49 New Beginnings
Crafty Purple Frog - New Beginnings
Delicious Doodles - Jan: Something New
Dragon’s Lair - Jan: New Beginnings
Happy Little Stampers - Anything Goes With Dies
NordSalten HobbyKlubb - #153 Baby
Simply Create - #123 New Beginnings

CCM #179 Christmas With a Twist

It’s time for our final challenge of 2017 at Crafty Cardmakers. I cannot believe the year has gone by so quickly, but Christmas is once again nearly upon us, and as usual I am totally unprepared! Anyhow, our challenge is Christmas with a Twist, the twist being something non traditional, quirky, unusual, not necessarily thought of as Christmas.

I have used a couple of twists in my card. Firstly the colour scheme is not necessarily one used for Christmas, secondly the image is a bit out there, a Stampotique stamp by Daniel Torrente called Tangled Enthusiasm, which brings me to thirdly I went for a play on the word twist, as this quirky little fella is all ‘twisted’ up in the Christmas lights.

I stamped my image and then masked him off with Eclipse tape whilst I inked over the background with DIs. I then coloured him to tone in with the background inking with my Copics. The lights actually looked quite effective in reality, not showing up so well in a photograph sadly, but all twinkly like lights would be, because I glittered the bulbs in lots of different coloured glitters. The presents were coloured and cut out separately to give the impression of some dimension but without actually creating any……. have to fool Royal Mail somehow and not have to pay them extra to post my cards!

The sentiment was stamped from a Dylusions stamp, Christmas Words, which I stamped and then cut out to fill the top of the card more.

I am entering this into:-
Addicted to Stamps - #137 Christmas
Allsorts - #393 Christmas Lights
Country View Crafts - Dec: Christmas
Crafty Calendar - Dec: Christmas Time
Crafty Catz - #350 Christmas in Non Traditional Colours
Creative Corner - Christmas Time
Crimbo Crackers - #121 Non Traditional Christmas Colours
Kitty Bee Aloha Friday - #86 Christmas
Pattie’s Creations - #129 Anything goes related to Winter or Christmas
Pink & Main -  #16 Not so Traditional Holiday Cards
QKR Stampede - #221 Non Traditional Christmas Colours
Sparkles Monthly Challenge - #86 Christmas Is Coming

DV #146 Christmas

Our final challenge of the year at Dream Valley today is Christmas. We are sponsored by both Robyn’s Fetish and by All Dressed Up. The team were given lots of lovely stamps to choose from and I chose this Robyn’s Fetish image called Home For the Holidays.

I printed him and then stamped around the edge with the outside edge of a Chloe Endean stamp which makes a gorgeous border, which I embossed with Jingle Wow powder. I coloured him with my copic pens and then matted it onto some lovely paper from Crafters Companion. The snowflakes at the top are also from Crafters as are the gorgeous little Christmas tree diecuts which were on today’s door in their fabulous Advent Calendar which was a gift to their Platinum Members! Thanks you CC. Some adorable little dies are appearing day by day, and today’s was perfect to finish off my card.

| am entering this into:-

A Gem of a Challenge - #183 Snowmen/Women
Addicted to Stamps - #137 Christmas
Alphabet Challenge - T For Trees
Come and Get It - Christmas
Crafty Calender - Dec: Christmas Time
Crafty Friends - #46 Merry Christmas
Creative With Stamps - #9 Christmas
Dies R Us - #62 Christmas
Fussy and Fancy - #178 Christmas in Tones or Pastels
Paper Creator’s Crafts - #54 Christmas
Paru’s Cardmaking - Dec: Christmas
Robyn’s Fetish - #345 Square or Rectangle
Sparkle’s Monthly - #86 Christmas is Coming
Sweet Stampers - #1 Christmas
The Crafter’s Cafe - #162 Christmas
Winter Wonderland - Frame It or Night Scene

DV #145 Winter Animals

Our challenge at Dream Valley today is Winter Animals.

I went for a slightly obvious ‘Winter’ animal with a gorgeous Deer stamp from Chocolate Baroque. I stamped it in Archival Watering Can, and embossed with clear powder. I then inked around it with Broken China, Picked Rapsberry and Squeezed Lemonade DIs, using stencil brushes from Clarity.

When that was all done I put the whole thing through a lovely freebie embossing folder that came with a magazine last year.

I picked out the large snowflakes, small snowflakes and dots, on the embossed areas and glittered them. The oval I also glittered but with a glitter that has a sort of tinsel flake in it.

Then I matted onto rainbow mirri card, and onto a scalloped card blank.

I am entering this into:-

Cardz4Galz - #35 Contemporary Christmas
Challenge Up Your Life - #54 Santa’s Helpers (The Reindeer pulls the sleigh)
C.R.A.F.T. - #390 Christmas
Crafty Hazlenut’s Christmas Challenge - #308 Cute or AG Christmas
Cute Card Thursday - #452 Christmas/Holidays
Daring Cardmakers - A Musical Christmas (It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas)
Fashionable Stamping - #117 ‘Tis the Season, Autumn or Winter
Fresh Brewed - Nov: Pastels or Friendship
Imagine That - #10 Christmas Is Coming
Inkspirational - #122 Chill
Sasayaki Glitter Challenge - Nov: Christmas
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Christmas Critters

Sparkle Creations Christmas Card Challenges - #49 Christmas