DV #173 Things With Wings

Our challenge at Dream Valley this time is Things With Wings. We are sponsored by Fabrika Fantasy and I have used their ‘Earth Fairy’ for my card.

I swear my photography is getting worse, so apologies for the quality of the image in the photo above. I promise she doesn’t look that blurred in reality!

Anyhow I printed her onto Daler Rowney media paper and coloured her with my relatively new Zig Clean Color Brush Pens. I then cut round her with another new acquisition (thank goodness for second hand sites on Facebook!) Devine Eloquence. She is matted onto deep purple mirri. The papers are all from Nitwits’ Promised collection and I trimmed them up with a combination of Crafters Companion edge dies (by the way the Gemini hates these and cuts them where it’s only meant to emboss them. In the end I went back to Old Faithful Big Shot to cut them! The other dies are from Spellbinders and Sue Wilson for the flowers and leaves.

You can’t see in the pic, but the flowers and leaves I went over the top with Spectrum Sparkle clear overlay pen and also her wings are glittered with glamour dust!

The sentiment is from a set by Stamp-It.

I am entering this into:-

A Gem of A Challenge - #213 Spring Flowers
Challenge Up Your Life - #85 Spring Flowers
Crafty Calendar - Feb: 2 or More Layers
Cuttlebug Mania - Colour Challenge (I chose the mauves)
Dragonfly Dreams - Flowers
Fashionable Stamping - #132 One For the Girls
Southern Girls - Three or More Patterned Papers
Sweet Stampers - #17 Things With Wings
The House That Stamps Built - Tic, Tac, Toe (Diagonal Bottom Left-Top Right, Die Cut, Patterned Papers, Pastel Colours)

CCM #205 Love

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers today is Love and Romance.

My ‘card’ is for my Daughter to give to her Hubby. I had a different idea in my head when I started but if it could go wrong and not work out it did!

So I started with a sheet of construction acetate as I wanted to make a card with a completely transparent centre and just the roses design around the outside. After much faffing about and finding a different die to cut the acetate (the roses design caused too much pressure and kept splitting the acetate putting great cracks across the middle of it) I settled on a Crafters Companion new easel die to cut the acetate. Sadly this has a scalloped edge and I wanted it to be plain and not be able to be seen. The largest and outside die is the one from the Today is the Day from Tonic’s Floral Affections range. The next level in is from the Hello Posey in the same range and the middle is back to the Thank You range. As you can see all the dies mix and match which is fabulous.

I cut them all from red satin cardstock which I had first adhered to Dawn Bibby’s huge roll of double side film as I figured it would be much easier, and cleaner to stick onto acetate with card this way rather than fiddly little areas of glue.

I only put the middle two layers in (and you can see from the photo that they were actually cut from the waste that I would have had from the middle of the largest die), because when I stood them up against the Ornate Easel stand (also from Tonic) it looked awful behind. Even though it’s beautifully decorated it didn’t look right seeing it so obviously through the acetate layer. The easel stand has an outside layer of acetate and an inside layer of the red satin card.

Before I turned it into this single layered card I did try to make an easel card from it using the easel set from Crafters, mentioned above, but nothing was strong enough to support the acetate layer and still make an easel. Either I folded a piece of acetate in half as you would normally to make an easel, but then it looked like there was a dirty big crack across the centre of the heart, or I tried to cut a sort of strap, but that didn’t have the strength in it and in any event, even had I been happy with the half fold the acetate disliked all that folding and simply cracked clean in half!

The valentine sentiment was cut from silver mirri with a Simon Says Stamp die that if used in full says ‘Be My Valentine’ but because the word Valentine is so long I couldn’t fit it all in the centre of the heart and still be able to read it due to the intricacies of the decorated red satin card area!

I am sure there must be a way to create what I wanted to create, but at this moment in time my brain hurts and I am content with what I ended up with. Just hope that Son-in-Law likes it too!

I am entering this into:-

Bastel-Traum - #61 Valentine/Love
Card Mania Challenge - #101 Red and Hearts
Cards In Envy - Love You So Much
Country View Challenges - Feb: Anything But Cute
Creative Craft Cottage - #104 Love Is All Around
Daisy Chain Challenges - #16 Add a Heart
Dare2BArtzy - Feb: Love
Delicious Doodles - Feb: Valentine/Love
Die Cut Divas - Feb: Love Is In The Air
Dies R Us - #90 For The One I Love
Dragonfly Journeys - #111 Love
Naughty Or Nice - #48 All Loved Up
Noor UK- Feb: Celebrations
Paru’s Card Making Challenge - Feb: Love
Pearly Sparkles - #25 Love, Love, Love
Sheep Ski Designs - #11 Red/Hearts/Romance/Love
Use Your Stuff - #299 Love Is All Around

DV #172 3 Patterned Papers

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is to use 3 patterned papers. We are sponsored by All Dressed Up and I have used one of their fabulous digital images ‘I Love My Puppy’ to create my card.

I printed the image onto Daler Rowney Mixed Media paper which I also used on the bottom layer of the card as it’s an offwhite colour so the image looked odd against a white card. I coloured her with my brand spanking new Zig Clean Color watercolour pens which I have been lusting after for ages and Amazon had a good price and they kinda fell off the warehouse shelf into my basket!!! Anyhow, I haven’t quite got to grips with them yet as this was their first outing, especially skin tones, first it was too brown then too pink, then too dark and then too pale, lol, but I am sure with practice and maybe a bit of Youtube surfing I can find a good colour combo for skin.

I added a few Papermania shimmer dots to her hair ribbon and her dress.

My three patterned papers are all from Nitwits from their Bonnets and Bowties collection. I edged all of them with stickles star dust and actually sprinkled over the top before it dried with some of those pee wee glitters in a soft of soft lilac colour. Two of the papers were just straight rectangles and the third was a corner die that came with my Gemini.

Sentiment comes from John Lockwood’s everyday sentiments set and cut out with his mini tags set.

The mat behind the image is a spellbinders die, I think it’s the fancy labels 8 version which matches the labels 8 that I diecut the image out with.

I am entering this into:-

Addicted to Stamps - #277 Make Your Mark
C.R.A.F.T. - #453 3 of a Kind (patt papers)
Crafty Calendar - Feb: 2 Or More Layers
Crafty Hazelnut’s Patterned Paper - Feb
Cuttlebug Mania - Birthday
Everybody Art - #418 Circle or Square
My Creative Scoop - Color Inspiration Monthly Feb: #31
Noor Design - Feb: Celebrations
Oddball Art - Feb: Cute or Die
Papercraft Challenges - #4 Pastel Colours
Scribbles Designs - 5th Birthday Party Blowout, Birthdays
The Paper Shelter - #324 Birthday Card

CCM #204 Get Inky/Messy

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is to get inky and/or messy.

I started with a sheet of plain white card which I inked up with Tim’s Distress Oxides, and then spritzed with water to give that watercolour effect. I love these, and with any luck set 3 should be winging it’s way to me this week! Wish he would hurry up and release them all. I would not have bought the original DI’s if these had been available at the same time, or at least not the full set. Storage is a nightmare for so many inkpads and the originals aren’t much use for actually stamping, although these are, and these just seem to blend so much easier than the originals. These also give that lovely ‘chalky look’. Can you tell I love them?

I diecut out the centre of a 6” scalloped card with Spellbinders Adorning Squares. I have had this die for years and never used it!!!! I am sure that’s like 99% of us and not at all unusual. Anyhow this is one of those dies that you can cut in lots of different ways, and according to the packaging you can mix and match to create 20+ designs. I nearly gave this away last week, lol, so glad I didn’t because Now I have actually bothered to use it, I can see it popping up again soon.

I then created a square thin frame from my inked background and put another slice of it behind the apeture I had die cut into my card. Popping the diecut back in, having die cut the centre from that too. I’m really annoyed with myself, I swear it was dead centre when I popped it back in, but because there are so many ‘little areas’ that could stick back up I placed it under a heavy weight and left it to set…. and at that stage I think it might have shifted slightly so that it’s now slightly too far over to the right. Because the intricacy of the design is part of the overall design I didn’t feel I could cover up my mistake with something. I did try a few combinations of things but it detracted from the inky centre which was to have the butterfly on it.

I added the frame I had previously cut on foam pads, and having lift the butterflies wings stuck it down and added a row of gems for it’s body.

I like the way you can just catch hints of all the different colours through the diecut areas and the larger square area revealed in the centre.

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies - #10 Anything Goes with a Critter
4 Crafty Chicks - #387 Watercolour Backgrounds
Allsorts - #452 Old Favourites (Distress Oxides)
Country View Challenge - Jan: Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore - Jan: Anything Goes
Everybody Art - #417 Butterfly or Heart
The Paper Girls Challenge - #144 Watercolours
Happy Little Stampers - Jan: Watercolour Challenge
House of Cards - Jan: Mixed Media
Paperminutes - #522 Multicolour
The Corrosive Challenge - #1 Jan: Anything Goes

DV #171 Love

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is Love. The year goes so fast and Valentine’s Day is only just around the corner less than a month away already. Anyhow, we had some images from Paper Nest Dolls to play with and I chose Ellie with Heart Balloons.

I started with a blank 6” scalloped card and die cut into the centre of it a Tonic Verso Die from the Affections range called First Crush, which struck me as rather appropriate for the image. I printed Ellie onto watercolour card and coloured her with Albrecht Durer pencils. The glitter hearts are the ‘waste’ from a Memory Box heart shaped die full of tiny hearts. I stuck the same coloured glitter card to the back of the diecut areas. The small patterned mat is from Stamping Unicorn’s Butterfly Dreams paper pad. The sentiment die is from Alexandra Renke. I coloured it with spectrum sparkle pens to tone in with the glitter accents as I couldn’t think how to cut it from two different coloured glitter papers without it looking obvious. A|so it’s a very fine and delicate diecut and I wasn’t sure it would cope with rough glitter paper.

I am starting to worry that in my old age I have turned all girly. I don’t ususally use pinks, and this is my third card that has had this or a very similar shade of pink in it…. I must try harder to avoid pink next time around, lol

I am entering this into:-

Always Fun Challenges - #42 Wedding or Anniversary
Art Impressions - #224 Feel The Love
C.R.A.F.T. - #451 Love/Valentines
Cuttlebug Mania - Valentine’s Day
Everybody Art - #417 Butterfly Or Heart
Inspire. Create Challenges - #09 Love
Scrapbook & Cardmaking - #61 Valentine/Love
Tic, Tac, Toe - #31 Top to Bottom Right hand (light blue, heart, square

CCM #203 Bling’s The Thing

Our first challenge for 2018 over at Crafty Cardmakers is ‘Bling’s The Thing’. We would love to see any project you fancy provided it has lots of lovely bling, so that could be glitter, as I have done, gems, pearls, or any manner of sparkly thing you can think of.

I must apologise for the slight blur on my photo. It’s a nightmare trying to get a photograph of glitter/mirri card, and I, of course, combined them both!!!

My die cut is brand new and from Tonic and is called Live the Life You Imagined, which is what I want to do this year with my crafting! In reality of course I’d like Michael Buble to come and whisk me off my feet, but that ain’t gonna happen so I will stick with making sure I craft regularly instead!!! Anyhow enough waffling, I die cut it from turquoise mirri card and stuck it down over silver glitter card. I inlaid/paper pieced seome embossed hot pink mirri card into the flowers, the butterfly’s wing and also picked out the word ‘you’ in the sentiment to make it pop out more.

The whole thing is matted onto more turquoise mirri and a 7” scalloped card.

I need to get the vacuum out now as my carpet is a combination of slivers of pink and turquoise mirri. Very pretty, but don’t want to tread it all around my bungalow.

I am entering this into:-

Alphabet Challenge - U for Use 3 of Something (3 colours)
Allsorts Challenge - #450 No Patterned Papers
Cut It Up - #139 New Year’s Resolutions (As per my sentiment)
Cute Card Thursday - #512 Something Nee (the die)
Daisy Chain Challenges - #15 Something New (the die)
Happy Little Stampers - Jan: Anything Goes With Dies
My Time to Craft - #362 Something New (the die)
Shopping Our Stash - #336 Out With the Old and In With the New (new die, old hot pink mirri card were scraps in a scrap file, about 10 years old!)
The Crafter’s Cafe - #188 Lots of Bling
Stampavie and More - #297 Something New (the die)

DV #170 Anything Goes

Well that’s 4 months I wouldn’t want to repeat in a hurry. Around about August last year I had a fit and decided I needed to remodel my bedroom/craftroom as the mess in there was driving me nuts. Here I am 4 months later with a lovely new craft space and my bed moved into the lounge.

I will hopefully make a post later with before and after pics, but for now to the matter in hand. My first post in ages and of 2018 is on behalf of Dream Valley and our ‘Anything Goes’ challenge.

We were all given a few lovely Fabrika images to choose from and I picked Winter Fairy. I did actually remove a bird that she had on her shoulder as I preferred it without, and that, of course, is the beauty of digital images, you can manipulate them to remove bits, flip them, enlarge them etc.

I coloured her in with copics and promarkers. I made an ombre combination of the colours in the fairy to the scrolls and swirls surrounding her. Some of them I added glamour dust to, and some I left alone. I also added some white dots in her hair with a sharpie marker.

I matted her onto some blue glitter card, and then onto the white linen card I had printed her onto, and again onto more blue glitter and more white linen. The lovely detailed pink glitter frame surrounding the image was cut with an Intricut die I got from Hobbycraft, their own make. I had to cut one of the patterns out of each side along the length to make it fit the image without gaps, but one half of that I have hidden under the sentiment, and the other half, I hope your eye is not drawn to. The birthday sentiment was from Crafters Companion’s birthday exclusive bundle and is a transfer, which I foiled onto with foil that matched the glitter card.

It feels really good to be back crafting, instead of living in a war zone of boxes, more of that later, and I am looking forward to 2018 being a much more creatively productive year than 2017 was.

In the time I have been away from blogging I have lost over 2 and 1/2 stone with a combination of my own start and Weight Watchers and my hip has gotten progressively worse. I sincerely hope when I see the Physio this week that she will tell me I am well on course with my weight loss for hip replacement surgery. Cancel that, due to the crisis in the NHS that’s exactly what they did,, cancelled my appointment.

I should like to enter this into:-

Brown Sugar - #274 Birthday
Color Inspiration Monthly Link Up - #30 Anything You have Coloured Yourself
Crafty Friends - #74 For a Girl or Lady
Creative Knockouts - #227 Celebrations
Die Cut Divas - Jan: Do or Use Something New (the image and the dies are new)
Double D Challenge - Anything Birthday/Anniversary Goes
Everybody Art - #416 Latest Purchase
Pause, Dream, Enjoy - #1 Die Cuts
Stamping Sensations - Jan: Cold And Frosty Colours
Stamps & Fun - #315 Use Stamps (Hope a digistamp is okay)
The Paper Girls - #143 Glitter

Happy New Year everyone x