Tuesday 28 January 2014

Paper Pieced and Pink ....

I've been trying to get ahead with my card making this year - one of my many new year's resolutions was to make cards for every occasion!  We are just coming to the end of the first month of the year and I have enough cards made to cover every occasion until the end of February.  So I feel as if I'm off to a fairly good start!

Today's contribution is a pretty little card for my great niece who reaches the grand old age of 8 next month (going on 35!!).  I've used the sketch for the challenge on the Case this Sketch blog so will be entering the challenge.





The stamp was a free gift from a magazine some time ago and I stamped it onto some patterned paper (also free with a magazine!).  I them paper pieced it onto some card from my stash and layered it with some complimentary card.

Enjoy!

Saturday 25 January 2014

Butterfly Delight......

This week has been amazing! One of my cards has been show-cased over at "Less is More" and I'm so excited about it - you can check out my card here.  It's been a real boost along with all the wonderful comments that are left for me - Thank you all.

Today I've put together a card for the sketch challenge on "Less is More".  The design is clean and the colour palette very limited but I am quite pleased with the finished card.

The butterfly is only attached through the middle with foam pads

I used the following:

Versafine Black Ink
Stampin Up Riding Hood Red Ink
Artemio Butterfly stamps
Selection of small flowers stamps no longer in their original packaging
Ivory card from my stash
Hougie Scoring board to add the lines.

Enjoy!

Monday 20 January 2014

Giraffe Take Two ...

Back to babies!!  I thought I would have another go at the "Less is More" challenge for a New Baby card.  It's a variation on a theme with the same giraffe stamp but using different colours. I've avoided using pink or blue as I don't actually know anyone having a baby so will be adding these cards to my stock, just in case!!

I'm a little concerned about the placing of the sentiment ....


I used the following:

Hot of the Press stamp - small giraffe
Uniko Background Builders Round in Circles
Stampin Up Inks - Coastal Cabana and Not Quite Navy
Stampin Up card - Coastal Cabana
White card stock
Tattered Lace Alphabet Retro dies

Enjoy!

Sunday 19 January 2014

Flower Garden ...

Today has been a day for new techniques (new to me!) and trying out new products.  I've produced this card for my Mum - it's her birthday this week.  I'm running a bit late making the card as I need to get it in the post tomorrow but I've had real trouble coming up with an idea! I've spent a lot of time looking around all the wonderful crafting blogs and spotting great ideas I think to the point of confusion and indecision!

Anyway here is the card.  I began by heat embossing the image onto Kraft card stock and then colouring it using Derwent Inktense pencils. I love the effect these pencils have on Kraft and providing you do not use too much water to blend the colours the card stock holds up really well. I photographed the image a number of times as I added different colours just in case I ruined it I would be able to start again and repeat it up to the point it all went wrong!!  With advice from my son I have not completely coloured the image.

The early stages:




I took the finished image, cropped and layered it onto some burgundy card stock before placing in on a square kraft card.  Here is the final version:


The challenge at Simon Says Stamp Blog is to use Embossing so I think I am going to enter this card - it will be the first challenge I've entered on this blog.

I used the following:

Versamark
Funstamps White Embossing Powder
Woodware Square Garden Stamp
Derwent Inktense pencils.

Enjoy!

Saturday 18 January 2014

Small giraffe ....

This week has been an exciting one for me in the blog world - I've been lucky enough to have more people visit my blog than any other week!  Thanks for popping by and I hope you will keep checking in to see what I am up to!  I also have new followers - welcome to my blog, I'll be popping by your blogs to check out your worlds.

I've not had a very successful week card making as I've been rather distracted with knitting!  I have three knitted items on the go at the moment - a jumper for my daughter (one sleeve to finish and then stitching together), a waistcoat for myself (this is complete but needs stitching together) and another waistcoat for myself!!  I love knitting just not too keen on the finishing process!

Today I have created one card and made a lot of mess  in doing it!  It is for this week's challenge on "Less is More" - New Baby.



I used the following:

Distress Ink - Rusty Nail
Versafine - Onyx Black
Clearly Besotted Stamps - Geometric Style
Hot of the Press Stamp - Small Giraffe
Tattered Lace - Alphabet Retro dies

If you have time please leave a comment I love to read them.

Enjoy!

Sunday 12 January 2014

Simply Heart ....

I love the challenge of making one layer cards - the simplicity of the design is a real challenge. Having produced one card using hearts I then felt inspired to try another this time using a mask and a collection of sentiment stamps from Clearly Besotted.  



I'm entering this card into two challenges:

"Less is More" Week 154 - a one layer card with the theme of Hearts
Stamping and Sharing home of the Clearly Besotted challenge with the theme of Love

This is a square card (5"x 5") and I used the following:

Stampin Up ink - Bravo Burgundy and Regal Rose
X Cut Nesting Dies - Heart set
Clearly Besotted stamp set - Many Messages

Enjoy!

Saturday 11 January 2014

Embossed Heart .....

I've been wandering around You tube looking for inspiration! There is so much out there it can be very time consuming but I'm interested in finding new techniques to try out.  I've seen a number of crafters embossing only part of the card - I've used the technique to create a border on a card but never to emboss an image in the centre leaving the surrounding card flat. That is until today!  It has taken numerous attempts to get it to work (I stopped counting at 5!). The final version is not perfect but neither am I! 

The challenge this week at "Less is More" is to create a 'one layer card' with the theme of 'Hearts'.  So using this idea and the embossing technique this is the finished card:



This is a square card (5"x 5") and I used the following:

Stampin Up Ink: Regal Rose and Strawberry Blush 
Clearly Besotted Stamp Sentiment
Pampered Pets Embossing Folder
Sizzix Framelits Heart Die.

Enjoy!

Sunday 5 January 2014

Happy Everything .....

My first post of the 2014!


Happy New Year

This is the first card I've made this year ... I've found it difficult to 'get going' after the hectic holiday season!  I've been knitting throughout the holiday - it's quite a social craft as I can do it and chat to family and friends (and watch the seasonal quota of television!)

I was delighted that the challenge at "Less is More" this week is a colour challenge - Winter Blues.  Blue just happens to be my all time favourite colour! That didn't make the ideas flow very quickly!  Eventually this is what I came up with:

Hexagons and stitching (real and faux)
The patterned paper is from my stash and was originally free with a magazine - one of my plans this year is to try and use materials from my stash.


I've used dimensional pads to raise the sentiment and the image to give the card some added depth and interest.

I have plans to try and organise my stash so that I don't spend loads of time trying to find just the right piece of paper/card.  I think that I'm going to sort it all by colour - I'm not convinced it will work but I am going to give it a go!

Enjoy!