DV #226 Add Some Sparkle

Today at Dream Valley we are sponsored by the lovely Paper Shelter and we all got to play with one of their fabulous digis. I have used Angel for my card.

I printed her onto watercolour card.. I used copics for her skin tones and Zig Clean Color brush pens for the rest of her. I die cut the image with Spellbinders Floral Ovals. I then added some shabby embossing powders in both blue and pink and edge the diecut with three colours of Pentart Wax pastes, magenta, purple and turquoise. The glitter diecuts around the edge of the frame are from the Tutti Butterfly Oval which I cut into two to place around the edge.

The lovely butterfly paper is from Tracey Hey, In The Navy. The paper is matted onto silver glitter card, the same as I used for the butterfly frame and also for the sentiment, which I created with my brand new We R Memory Keepers Word Punchboard!!! Come on WRMK, a nice set of lower case punches please!!!!

I am entering this into:-

Art Impressions – #283 All Layered Up
Arty Divas – #22 Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments – #251 Anything Goes + Sentiment
Colour Crazy – # 20 Anything Colouring Goes
Craft-Dee Bowz – May: Anything Goes
Crafters Castle – #29 Anything Goes
Creativ Fusion – #17 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #186 Anything Goes
Di’s Digi Challenge – Include a Sentiment
Elliebelles Crafty Wednesday – May: Make It Feminine
Pattie’s Creations – #170 Anything Goes
Polkadoodles – #21 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #399 Anything Goes
Southern Girls – May: Anything Goes
The Crafters Cafe – #242 Feminine
The Creative Crafters – #28 Anything Goes
The Fairy and The Unicorn – #5 Anything Fantasy Goes
Unicorn Challenge – #54 use Dies

CCM #257 Butterflies

Hi from sunny Hampshire. I hope everyone is still keeping safe and well, despite the confusing advice we are now being given about going out and about again!

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is butterflies. I have to say I am personally missing the dragonflies and damselflies that I would normally be seeing when I take my dog out down to the river on my mobility scooter, but I am shielding so we are stuck in and all we can see are pigeons pooping on my scooter cover!

I created my card with some Crafters Companion products. The gorgeous butterfly diecut is from them as is the pretty backing papers.

I diecut the butterfly from the lilac paper and then used it as a background behind the die cut butterfly, when I matted it over another of CC’s lovely papers. The other matting layer is white glitter card, which I cut the die sentiments from and also another butterfly layer. There are now two butterflies fluttering in the gap that the original one was cut from.

The sentiments are all from Studiolight.

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – #38 Anything Goes with a Critter
A Bit More Time to Craft – #116 Anything Goes
Animal Friends – May: Insects
Aud Sentiments – #251 Anything Goes with a Sentiment
Crafts Galore Encore – #75 Anything Goes
Crafty Animals – #38 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #186 Anything Goes
Dare2BArtzy – May: In The Garden
Get Creative Challenges – #91 Make It Sparkly
Happy Little Stamper – May: Anything Goes with Dies
International Art & Soul – #83 Flowers & Butterflies
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #132 Anything Goes
Love To Craft – #46 Anything Goes
Not Just Cards – May: Anything Goes
The Corrosive Challenge – #5 Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #28 Anything Goes

DV #225 Favourite Colours

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is Favourite Colours and we are sponsored by Dis Digidesigns.

I actually don’t have a single favourite colour, but a combination of colours like my image actually is my favourite use of colour.

This is a more accurate representation of the subtlety of the colours, but the picture was too flat, and the butterfly looked flat, whereas the top picture although darker and maybe with more yellow in it, shows the butterfly’s dimension.

So I stamped the word stamp behind the butterfly in various shades of Tonic Nuvo Inks. I then stamped the butterfly over the top, and stamped the butterfly a second time onto spare card. I coloured it with Lyra Aquacolours and cut it out and then decoupaged it over the top of the one stamped directly on the card. The word stamp is from No Words and the Butterfly from Life is a Canvas both by Tracey Hey.

Using the same Tonic ink colours I randomly inked some spare card, from which I cut the Alexandra Renke Birthday Sentiment. I also cut it again in black and created a drop shadow effect with the black layer.

The shaped mats and layers were cut with Phil Martin’s Inverted double embossed rectgangle dies. which I also used to create the base card.

I am entering this into:-

A Place to Start – May: Create a Custom Background
AAA Birthday – #13 Things With Wings
Animal Friends = #86 Insects
C.R.A.F.T. – #555 Annual Blog Hop Birthday
Crafting Happiness – #48 Anything Goes Option Nature
Paperminutes – #639 Butterfly
Seize The Birthday – #190 Anything Goes Birthday
The Paper Shelter – #426 Happy Birthday
Unicorn Challenge – #54 Use Dies
Use Your Stuff – #397 Flowers and/or Butterflies
Watercooler Wednesday – #270 Anything Goes with a feminine twist

CCM #256 Celebrations

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Celebrations. I know we might not feel much like celebrating at the moment, but friends and family are still having birthdays, Wedding Anniversaries, giving birth etc. So there is still lots to celebrate.

I created my card for a friend’s 80th Birthday.

CCM #255 Anything But A Card

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Anything But a Card.

Because most of the world seems to be in lockdown at the moment, and I myself am shielding due to underlying health issues, the threat of Covid-19 seems to be ever present in my mind. As a consequence the idea for this journal page came to me. I know that the threat of this dreadful virus is serious, and I am actually quite paranoid myself about it, but I have tried to see the fun side of being stuck at home. I have a quite dark sense of humour hence the possibly inappropriate start to the sentiment that I came up with for my page. Just so you know, the only scooter I have is the mobility sort and the closest I come to a pool in my garden is when we had all that rain and my walking stick got stuck in the ground by over two inches with a layer of water permanently there! But a girl can dream, lol.

Anyhow enough of my waffling. I used a page from my lovely studiolight 6.5” journal, and with a clarity stencil I created a few different coloured circles in cracked pistachio, faded lilac and mustard seed. Over the top of that I spread texture paste through the Aall & Create Lotza Dotz stencil. I edged the whole thing with the same DIs as in the background. I’ve also used a few Aall & Create stamps to add some extra detail.

The little duck is also from Aall & Create, Quack, and it has a matching die set. I coloured him with copics and my polychromos pencils. The scooter comes from a Katzelkraft stamp set, as did the drink and the sunglasses.

I created the sentiment on my pc, and edged it with a black copic.

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – #37 Anything with a critter goes
Art Impressions – #280 Kid At Heart
Artistic Stamper – April In the Garden (hope my unusual take of the theme is okay!)
Country View Crafts – April Animal Magic
Crafters Castle – April #28 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – April Anything Goes
Crafty Animals – #37 Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #58 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Creative Fingers – #184 Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday – #630 Wings
Die Cut Divas – April It’s all about Animals
Fab ‘N’ Funky - #477 Spots Or Dots
Happy Little Stampers – April Anything Goes With Dies
Modsquad – April Birds
Not Just Cards – April Anything Goes
Polkadoodles – #16 Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #394 Anything Goes
Sheepski Designs – #37 Show Us Your Wings
Simply Create Too – #159 Anything but a Card
We Love 2 Create – #4 Anything Mixed Media Goes

DV #223 Things With Wings

Good Morning and Happy Easter.

Today’s challenge from Dream Valley, sponsored by Morgan’s Artworld, is Things With Wings.

I have used one of the sponsor’s images called simply digistamp 15. I printed her onto Elegance cardstock and coloured her with my polychromos pencils. The wings and bird in her hair were glittered with glamour dust.

The backing paper is very old from Elusive Images, now Chocolate Baroque! The Happy Birthday sentiment is from Crafters Companion’s new Edge’able dies.

I cut the sentiment piece twice, and then having added a layer beneath the flap so that they would stay in place, I paper pieced the white letters back into the holes that the die leaves, when it’s cut.

In the picture above I have pushed the flap with the sentiment on down flat, but actually it stands proud like the picture below so you can see more of the gorgeous backing paper.

The flowers are again really old, from my stash, and by Prima, and the ferns are cut with a MS punch from the same backing paper.

The image was cut out with Julie Hickey’s rectangle frame dies, including the scalloped black mat and the tiny frame diecut.

Here is a close up of glittered areas.

I am entering this into:-

Alphabet Challenge – A For Anything Goes
Artsy Stamper – #13 Things With Wings
Aud Sentiments – #248 Anything Goes with a Sentiment
Crafty Friends – #133 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #183 Anything Goes
Daisy Chain Challenges – #40 Birthday
Di’s Digi Challenge – Pretty In Pastel
Fab ‘n Funky – #476 Birthday
Not Just Cards – Apr: Anything Goes
Pattie’s Creations – #169 Birthdays
Seize The Birthday – #187 Anything Birthday Goes
Sheepski Designs – #37 Show Us Your Wings
The Fairy and The Unicorn – Apr: Anything Fantasy
Through The Craftroom Door – Anything Goes

Stay safe and well everyone.

#254 Easter

Good morning. Hope everyone is keeping well and is not too bored.

Our challenge for the next two weeks at Crafty Cardmakers is Easter. I know many of you will possibly not feel like celebrating, but hopefully some happy Easter creations will cheer you up. We would love for you to join us!

To make my Easter card I started with some Daler Rowney Mixed Media paper, my go to card for messy techniques as it’s flexible yet robust enough to stand up to wet work.

Using #33 a stencil from Aall & Create I spread texture paste through it onto the card. After it had dried, using a combination of Jane Davenport Inks and Mermaid Markers, I picked out the colours mentioned beneath it to create a different type of rainbow. I laid the stencil back over to colour the words to match beneath the rainbow.

Then again using the same inks, I created the blue sky background and the green grass for the bottom. I overlaid Grass Lawn stencil from Polkadoodles to create some definition in the grass with Distress Oxides.

The Bunnies, are all cut from felt. The large one is one of Tim Holtz’s trio of bunnies, Bunny Hop, and the small ones I believe are Rabbit Border from Alexandra Renke. I shaded them a little with Hickory Smoke DI, including on the brown ones. The butterflies are all from a butterfly strip die made by Crafters Companion. I coloured the top ones to pick out some of the rainbow colours, but left the ones fluttering in the grass in white.

The large bunny has a tail made from a cotton ball which is meant to be used with a crocodile clip for colouring with chalks. The sentiment is from Sizzix, Debbie Potter’s Dainty Upper and Lower case.

This card has lots of texture to it, first the embossing paste, and then the lovely tactile and soft bunnies.

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – Anything With a Critter Goes
Allsorts – #566-7 Something Old, Something New…… old small bunnies, new large bunny
Cardz For Galz – #118 Cute Animals
Always Fun – #157 Easter
Craft Rocket – #69 Furry Friends
Crafting Happiness – #43 Anything Goes Opt Twist Easter
Crafty Calendar – April: Add A Butterfly
Creative Artiste – #59 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Die Cut Divas – April: It’s All About Animals
My Inkie Fingers – #11 Make It Pop
My Time To Craft – #429 Easter Cuties
Simon Says Monday Chall – Add some Texture
Southern Girls – April: Anything Goes
Sparkles Monthly – #126 Easter
Use Your Stuff – #395 Easter
We Love 2 Create – #4 Anything Mixed Media Goes