ccm #231 Easter

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Easter. We would love to see any Easter inspired project from you. You could go traditional, like I have done or it could involve, bunnies, chicks, eggs, lambs or bonnets. Mary is hosting today’s challenge and she will be choosing the Winner and Top 5.

I actually was going to go down the bunny route, but my back is bad and I didn’t have the energy to search around my craft space for rabbits….. when I looked all I could find was hares, so instead I thought I would go traditional instead.

My card is very simple and involves the lovely Easter Hymn There is a Green Hill Far Away, and a lovely die from Leonie Pujol from her Entwined Crosses range. I just used the basic plain cross in silver glittery card and added an inner frame in black. The same card is used in the back layer of my card, along with a layer of black glittery card as a mat.

I am entering this into:-

Angie’s Digital Stamps – #30 Anything Goes Option Easter
Aud Sentiments – #224 Easter/Spring Sentiment
Bastel Traum – #75 Easter
Createful Heart – #7 Easter
Creative Craft Cottage – #117 Easter
Kitty Bee – #140 Easter
My Time to Craft – #394 Easter~
Scrap From Your Heart – #32 Use Dies
Tales from The Craft Room – #3 Easter/Spring
The Crafting Challenge – April: Anything Goes or Easter

CCM #230 That Special Someone

As Mother’s Day is next Sunday here in the UK we would love to see your creations for your Mum, but as a lot of us, sadly, no longer have our Mum’s we are happy to see your creations for someone who is really special to you instead.

My card was created for my Niece, for her birthday.

The background is pixie powders. The image has been stamped in the centre of a piece of card diecut with Sue Wilson’s Ava Frames and Tag die. The silhouette is from Creative Expressions and is called The Ex, it comes with a funky sentiment stamp to0 – ‘I still miss my ‘Ex’ …. but my aim is improving - but that wasn’t really suitable for a birthday card!

The die cut layer and the pixie powder background layer are matted onto a blank premade card with a fancy edge with embossing on it. I did go over the embossing with blue chalk to accentuate the embossing. I did actually get a little heavy handed and managed to die the whole edge blue, not just the raised areas. Thank goodness it was chalk, as I spent the next twenty minutes or so rubbing it away!

The sentiment I made on my pc.

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – #24 Anything Goes with a Critter
A Bit More Time to Craft – #88 Anything Goes
Artastic – March Monochrome
Artistic Inspiration – #213 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – #61 Anything Goes
Crafty Animals – #24 Anything Goes with an animal
Dies R Us = #117 One For the Ladies
Dragonfly Dreams – For a Special Female
Fabrika Fantasy – #28 For the Girls
Happy Little Stampers – March Anything Goes With Dies
Mix It Up Chall – #23 Anything Goes option Inked Background
Pearly Sparkles – #38 Make It Girly
Tales From the Craft Room – #2 Lovely Ladies
The Creative Crafters – #14 Anything Goes

DV #198 Let’s Get Krafty

Today at Dream Valley we are sponsored by Polkadoodles in our Let’s Get Krafty Challenge. I have lots of gorgeous Polkadoodles products in my stash and enjoyed using them for this project.

I’m not actually a fan of kraft card and don’t actually have any. I know, who would have guessed it, a craft product I don’t own!!!! I do, however, have some left over Craftwork Cards kraft boxes and lids.

They look like this when made up.

I started with the blank box base and used elements from the Ula collection, namely the background paper and Ula herself, and from Winnie in Wonderland, namely the rabbit.

The paper was cut smaller than the base and distressed around the edges. The lace edging was from my stash. You need about 1.5 times the inside perimeter of the box to gather it after running a long stitch through to create the gathers. Before gathering I edged it with Magenta Hue Archival ink and after gathering stuck it to red liner tape. I also added some extra glue and sprinkled Glitterbitz onto that and the bits of red liner tape that were still exposed.

The sentiment was also from the Ula collection and I printed it onto Letraset’s Safmat.

I love safmat as it sticks down and you can’t see it’s edges and looks like you either stamped it or rubbed it on. It’s pefect for digital sentments like these if you don’t want to mat and layer them.

The cogs and the pocket watch are from Craft Buddy, a huge bag of metal embellishments. The cogs I left as they were but the pocket watch and the small key I attached to it I picked out the parrot and the edge of the watch, plus the winder in pentart magenta wax paste.

In the bottom corner I sprinkled more glitterbitz and added some silver sparke balls from Artful Days, which I first popped into a cello bag and then sprayed in some pink spray and rolled them around to change their colour from plain silver to having a pink tinge! Saves buying all the colours, hey! I also added a small glass bottle filled with tinsel bits.

Finally I added some gems to her crown which I coloured with copics to match the colours in the image. I also coloured the heart on her dress to match the gems in her crown.

Both the images were pre-coloured. I wanted to concentrate more on the layout than the colouring and as I was short of time I went with the pre-coloured images as you have a choice of both in both these collections.

I said at the start I am not a fan of kraft, but actually now this is finished I am rather pleased with it! Maybe my feelings towards kraft card are changing!

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – #24 Anything Goes with a Critter
Animal Friends – #72 Rabbits
Cardz For Galz – #92 March Hares or Rabbits
CD Sunday – #6 Anything from a CD goes
Classic Design Team – #3 March Anything Goes
Crafter’s Castle – #15 Anything Goes Option Glitter
Crafting With An Attitude – #49 Anything Goes
Crafty Hazelnut’s Patt Paper Challenge – March
Creations in Pink – #8 Anything goes as long as it’s mostly pink
Di’s Digi Challenge – Tic, Tac, Toe (Top Left-Bottom Right, Sentiment, Digi Image, Gems)
Kitty Bee Designs – #138 Animals
Papercraft Business Challenge – #16 Anything Goes
Pearly Sparkles – #38 Make It Girly
Polkadoodles Crafting – #11 Anything Goes
Sparkle N Sprinkle – March Anything Goes with glitter
The Corrosive Challenge – #3 March Anything Goes
The Fairy and The Unicorn – Anything Goes option Alice
We Love 2 Create – #3 Anything Goes
Worldwide Open DT Challenge – #3 Anything Goes

DV #197 Four Legged Friends

We are sponsored for today’s challenge at Dream Valley by Di’s Digi Stamps and the theme is Four Legged Friends.

This is a page from my Art Journal. It does have a two legged friend in there but it also has two quirky four legged friends. I started with adding some ink to a blank page with Decoart acrylic paints. I added various different stamps in distress oxide toning colours. The images are all from Katzelkraft, apart from the dog in the middle and the bow tie, which is one of Tim Holtz mini dogs and companion stamp sheets..

I stamped my images onto Talens Watercolor Printer Paper and coloured them images with kuretake clean color brush pens, before cutting them out and sticking them down onto the page. I added some shadow beneath the images.

The left hand side of the page is the waste paint wipe off, ready to turn it into a double spread. I am intending at some stage to make it look as if the two were made together.

I just loved this giraffe with the twist in his neck and the expression on his face. I originally placed them on the winner’s rostrum to fill the page more but it suddenly struck me what sentiment would go perfectly with the layout…… from Tim Holtz’s Snarky stickers sheet.

I added some small touches of glitter to the numbers on the rostrum, the bow tie, the bird wings and the umbrella dots, and then went around the edge of the page with a journal pen in turquoise.

The first two pictures are a better representation of the real life depth of colour, but the bottom one shows the glittery elements.

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – #24 Anything Goes with a Critter
A Inky Mess – #28 Anything Mixed Media Goes
A Perfect Time to Craft – #3 Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #47 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Di’s Digi Challenge – Include an Animal
Mix It Up Challenge – #23 Anything Goes + An Inked Background
Rhedd’s Creative Spirit – Anything Mixed Media Goes
Sparkles Monthly – #113 Include an Animal
Stamping Sensations – Mar: Somewhere over the rainbow (all the colours of the rainbow in my page)
The Crafter’s Cafe – #214 Birds
Time Out Challenges – #130 unique
We Love to Create – #3 Anything Creative Mixed Media Goes

CCM #228 Flowers

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers today, hosted by Kim, is Flowers. A nice easy one as we all must have either heaps of flower embellishments or flower stamps!

I wanted to back the journal page I made last week as it was looking very messy in my journal so I made one from the same watercolor print paper as that one in order that I could glue it on the back of the existing one.

I actually started out quite arty with three different floral stamps which I masked and stamped up, and then masked all three up and overstamped with the background stamp, Stitched Mixed Media Background by Brigit Koopsen from Carabelle Studios. I stamped the background in Archival Ink Manganese Blue and then created some lovely puddles of colour using Aqua Flow pens from Tonic Studios and mopping them up. Sadly, the masks were not stuck down well and the inks all bled under them and actually created a muddy mess. I did, however, like the look of the rest of the background so I looked for a lovely big stamp to cover the original mess! Nil Desperandum as my Latin teacher used to say!

I decided on Tracy Evans Blossomed Numbers from Aall & Create and I stamped this out twice on the same watercolor print paper. I coloured both flowers with Inktense pencils and then cutting just the petals of one one I stuck the first one down and popped the spare petals underneath and between the petals of the full one.. I had to bulk it out as you could still see the mess beneath. Should have taken a photo but forgot.

I stencilled some glitter paste from Cosmic Shimmer through Lotza Dotz stencil from Aall & Create and the other stencil also from Aall is called Weathered Tiles. This one was also a disappointment. Having nearly broken my wrist getting the top off of a jar of Colourcraft Soft Relief Paste in Pearl (boy was that ever stuck fast), the darn stuff sort of melted into the background as it dried! I rescued it, I think, by going over the finished dried blobs with Pentart Metallic Wax paste in both a turquoise blue and soft lilac so that you could at least see there was detail there!

The sentiment I typed out and then just edged each word with black medium nib graphic pen dots.

Now, can some kind soul PLEASE point me in the direction of white paint, or a white marker, or even a white pencil which when applied DOES NOT take up the colour of the layer beneath it. I supposed I could seal it first with gel medium or similar, but honestly life is too short to fiddle around like that for a journal page!! So my ‘sort of’ white dots are from a combination of a white paint sharpie, a posca white pen and a white acrylic paint pen, none of which diddn’t just suck up the colour below. 

I am entering this into:-

Addicted to Stamps – #171 Anything But a Square
Allsorts Challenge – #508 Spring Flowers
Art Journal Journey – The Colour Yellow
Classic Design Team Challenge – Feb: #2 Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Craft Chall – #7 Anything Goes
Crafty Creations – #384 Anything Goes
Do-Al(l) Creative – #26 Mixed Media
Not Just Cards – Feb: Anything Goes
Stamping Sensations – Feb: All Things Bright And Beautiful
The Corrosive Challenge – #2 Feb: Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #13 Anything Goes

DV #196 Sparkle And Shine

Our challenge today at Dream Valley and Sponsored by Oddball Art is Sparkle and Shine

I have used one of their images called Sally’s Stars Img 292 to create my journal page.

I printed her onto Talens Watercolor Print Paper – have to say I wasn’t a fan of this paper at first as I find that actually no matter what I use the Ecoline brush pens on I cannot seem to blend them without tearing up the paper, however, for this it proved perfect! It allows you to blend copics beautifully, plus it takes other wet media really well! Anyhow I digress.

After I printed her onto the Talens paper I reprinted her onto Eclipse Masking Tape, which I had first stuck to plain old printer copy paper, and cut out her main image and the stars, which I then stuck back over her to mask her out.

Then I had some fun with the Ecoline Liquid Watercolours. I painted the who thing with plain water and then dripped and dropped to my heart’s content!

After I let it dry I removed the mask. I did end up carefully adding some more to the left hand edge as I had not put enough down.

I coloured her in with my copics.

I made a star border from a Carabelle Studio die, by cutting some silver glittery card, which I then coloured with the same coloured copics I used to decorate the three stars in the image. The spare stars from inside the diecut were used to decorate down the right hand side of the paper. And I glossy accented the three main printed stars to provide the shine, whilst the glitter card provided the sparkle.

I finally cut this down to fit in my Dylusions Creative Flip Journal and rounded the edges with an Xcut corner rounder punch. I stuck the page into my journal with plain washi tape. I have a set from Dyan in three different sizes perfect for this or printing your own images on.

I enjoyed this because it meant I could add a digital image into my Journal without having to fussy cut it and add it to the page later. Now that I have seen how well it worked I will try it again. I will have to anyway as the backside of this sheet is MESSY and looks awful in the journal and I feel sure that anything I add to the other side may well show through on this side. So I will stick them both together to form a completely new page.

I am entering this into:-

A Inky Mess – #22 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Addicted to Stamps – #171 Anything But a Square
Alphabet Challenge – X is for Xtra Bling
Colour Crazy Challenge – #6 Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #46 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Creative Playground – #2 Anything Goes
Do-Al(l) Creatives – #26 Mixed Media
Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge – Feb: Anything goes
Happy Little Stampers Dies – Feb: Anything Goes
Oddball Art Stamps – Feb: anything Goes
Polkadoodles – #7 Anything Goes
Your Next Stamp – #107 Die Cuts
Stamping Sensations – Feb: All Things Bright and Beautiful
We Love 2 Create – #2 Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes

CCM #227 Love, Love, Love

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Love.

I made my card for my Daughter and Son-in-Law’s Wedding Anniversary.

I started with a nice white sheet and coloured it up with Distress Oxides, adding some splatters of water and some pixie powders on the top. I used this to create the back mat and also the hearts and the background for the sentiment.

The hearts and sentiment, which I stamped and embossed with white ink and embossing powder are both from Wendy Vecchi’s Studio 490 Love to Make Art stamp set. Having stamped the hearts I fussy cut them and added them and the sentiment on foam pads.

The gorgeous diecut was also cut from the main sheet I created using a Tattered Lace die, Detailed Flourish D218.

I am entering this into::-

Artistic Stamper – Feb: Heart It
Card Mania – #113 Love Is In The Air
Catch The Bug – Love Is In The Air
Challenge Up Your Life – #105 Love
Ching-Chou Kuik – Feb: Love
Creatalicious – #156 Anything Goes with Option Love/Hearts
Creative Craft Cottage – #115 Valentines
Creative With Stamps – #35 Love
Daisy Chain Challenges – #27 Have a Heart
Dare2BArtzy – Feb: Love
Di’s Digi Challenge – All About Love
Die Cut Divas – Feb: Love Is In The Air
Digi Doodle Studios – #13 All About Love
Dragonfly Dreams – Include a Heart
International Heart & Soul – #51 Make Your Own Background
Lost Coast Portal – #69 Love and Hearts
SheepSki Designs – #23 All You Need Is Love
Sognando Scrap – #64 Love Is
Sweet Stampin’ – Valentines
We Love 2 Create – #2 Anything Mixed Media Goes