DV 201 Pink Birthday

Our challenge over at Dream Valley for the next two weeks is Pink Birthday. We are sponsored by Fabrika Fantasy and we were lucky enough to have some of their gorgeous digis to work with. I chose Elf Fairy for my card.

The ones we had were png files which were on a white background and perfect for this project. I first loaded a background paper from Bearly Mine Designs into my graphics program, and then the png image file was placed over the top of the background paper to form a focal point and the whole thing was printed onto Talens Watercolour paper. It has been sized to fit the 8” square scalloped card which forms the base.

I coloured her with copic markes, and used a posca pen to add the dots to her dress. Just a couple of diecuts for the sentiment and the small floral sprig along with some glossy accents over the water in the watering can and forming splashes on the plant below. This is matted first onto black card and then onto pink metallic card.

This is a close up of the plant with it’s water splashes.

I am entering this into:-

Alphabet Challenge – C for CAS
Aud Sentiments – #225 Birthday Sentiment
Crafty Catz – #459 Anything Goes
Crafty Creations – #389 Anything Goes
Creations in Pink – #9 Anything Goes in mainly Pink
Di’s Digi Challenge – Spring Flowers
International Art and Soul – #57 Birthday
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #104 Anything Goes
Pattie’s Creations – #157 Flowers
QKR Stampede – #435 Anything Goes
Sweet Stampers – #31 Birthday
The Corrosive Challenge – #4 Anything Goes
The Crafty Addicts – #59 Anything Goes Option Pink

CCM #232 Dragons or Other Mythical Creatures

As tomorrow, 23rd April, is St. George’s Day here in England, our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Dragons or Other Mythical Creatures.

I stamped my Dragon from Katzelkraft onto Talens Watercolor Paper, and coloured him in with Inktense pencils. The sentiment is a combination of sentiments from Craftwork Cards. The balloons, also coloured with Inktense are also from Katzelkraft.

I added some sparkle pen to the balloons.

The matting layers are from the Indian Summer paper pad from Clarity as I loved the colours.

My Sister’s birthday tomorrow, and she is always complaining that they don’t do St. George and the Dragon cards for birthdays, so here is the dragon……. St. George thought he was too cute to kill so gave him some balloons to hold instead!

I am entering this into:-

Addicted to Stamps – #337 Make Your Mark
Aud Sentiments – #225 Birthday Sentiment
Colour Crazy Challenge - #15 Anything Goes
Crafting From the Heart – #241 Anything Goes
Crafting With An Attitude – #50 Anything Goes
Crafty Catz - #458 Anything Goes
Crafty Hazlenut’s Patterned Paper – April: Anything Goes
Creative Crafters - #15 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #162 Anything Goes
Creative With Stamps – #37 Birthday
Stamplorations – April: Watercolouring
Sweet Stampers – #31 Birthday
The Fairy and The Unicorn – April: Anything Goes

DV #200 All about Bears

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is called All About Bears, and we are sponsored by. Dies to Die for with a £15 voucher.

I used a stamp from the House Mouse Gruffies range for my card.

I coloured it in with Sakura Koi Watercolor brush pens, and matted it onto plain black card and pink glitter card.

I am entering this into:-

Addicted to CAS – #157 Humour
Crafting From the Heart #241 Anything Goes
Crafty Animals – #25 Anything Goes
Dare2BArtzy – April: Animals
Dragonfly Dreams – Include An Animal
Get Creative – #79 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #343 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – No Designer Paper

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