Stamptacular Sunday Challenge #14

Thanks to everyone who took part in last weeks 'Party Animal' challenge, all wonderful cards and some really fun ones too.

On to this weeks Stamptacular challenge which is the theme of...........

"CHRISTMAS IN JULY"

We want to see your creations with a Christmas theme be it a card, ATC, altered item etc.. All we ask is that there must be at least ONE stamped item on your project to be in with a chance of winningg this weeks prize which is being sponsered by the talented Sally-Ann and her DigiStamp Boutique.

The DT have been really busy with wonderful seasonal projects to help inspire you so please check them out on the challenge blog and visit their personal blogs to see how they created their designs. Here's my seasonal creation.

The image is a woodmounted Expressions stamp which I recieved as a pressie last Christmas from Steve, and this was it's first ink-up. Coloured with H2O's and gold metallic Sakura pen. Oval cut from nesties in the bug. DP's are all Funky Fairys as is the sentiment round, from the 'Lets Get Traditional' kit, distressed the edges of the papers and sentiment using a nail file. Scalloped base card is from Craftwork Cards. Added gold ribbon mesh from stash to one corner and card candy to all corners.

I hope you'll be able to join us this week for the challenge, it's never too early to make a start on a Christmas card or project.

Enjoy your Sunday!!!

Sketch & Stash Challenge #8

This my last GD creation for Sketch & Stash, I'd just like to thank Becky, Cathy, Chrissie and Lisa for making me feel so welcome and I have thoroughly enjoyed my 2 week slot as a GD.

There is a terrific sketch to follow for challenge #8 and the DT have some amazing creations for you, here is my GD creation.

The digi-stamp is by Chris Dark and it's the first time I've used it, coloured with H2O's and a waterbrush, I've also used green and blue ink pads around the edges of the image. Sentiment is stamped. Papers are all, yes you guessed it, K&Co..lol, finished with some card candy.

I made this card for Clare's husband, if you know Clare's blog you may have seen that she was asking for birthday cards for her hubby, who is feeling a bit down at the moment and didn't want to bother with his birthday, well us crafters are always happy to oblige, so I hope Dean had a fantastic birthday!!

Below is this weeks sketch to follow, you are free to add the sentiment and any embellishments wherever you choose on your creation.

One For My Nan

It's my nan's 80th birthday on the 14th April, she is flying up to Scotland to visit my mum and step-dad for a couple of weeks this afternoon. As a surprise my mum is holding a little get together for her this coming Saturday, and as an extra surprise myself and my youngest brother are also going to be there. Well Steve and myself will actually be surprising her on Friday when we arrive at my mum's.

Anyway, I need to do two cards for her and here is the one from us.

The image is a gorgeous digi-stamp by Chris Dark, coloured with Twinkling H2O's and a waterbrush, I've also added a few dew drops using some 3D glaze.

Cut out image and gold matting using Labels '2' nesties then stenciled a gold rim around image and inked the edges in red. Sentiment was done on the PC and again cut-out using the label nesties.

Paper is K & Co and the red rose panel is organza type material with printed red roses, I bought this material in different colours and designs back last year and have only used recently. Added some gold ribbon going through the sentiment.

To finish I've stamped some swirls in red (though they look brown in the pic) to the top corners and added three tiny red gems.

Thank you for visiting and your coments are much appreciated. xx

Funky Fairys Challenge #6 ~ Blue

Good Morning Everyone!! I hope you are all well. It's challenge 6 over on Funky Fairys Challenges and this week we would like you to use 'Blue' on your creation. Remember you don't have to make a card you could alter something, do a scrap page, ATC...etc, anything you imagination desires, all we ask is that you use at least one Funky Fairy papercrafts item on your creation, to be in with a chance of winning the prize. Which this week is a fabby FF download kit and a beautiful clock made by our very own Emma using FF papercraft items, it's so gorgeous and I'm well gutted I can't have the chance to win it.

The DT have had real fun this week and the creations are varied and all wonderful, so be sure to take a peek. And this week we welcome our Guest Designer to the funky bunch, Lorraine.

Here's my DT creation for the challenge:

I've altered what was a plain wooden box (available from The Range for 99p). I made this in mind that it would be perfect for a man, my man in fact, as he's always leaving bits 'n' bobs around, but my fellow DT's think it's far to good for a man to have and it was even suggested by my fellow DT and buddy Emma, that a margarine tub would be more appropriate for his bit 'n' bobs...lol.

Anyway, I painted the box, using blue twinkling H2O's, then lightly sanded it before going over the top with a dark blue marker, this made it darker where it was sanded heaviest but still allowed the metallic effect of the paint to show through. I've then added paper panels using papers from the FF 'Love Train' kit. The lettering was cut from one of the papers on my cuttlebug using the 'Hippy Chic' alphabet dies. Once each letter was stuck down I went around the edge of the letters with a blue sakura glaze pen. To finish I made a hole through the front of the lid and added a 'Pliers' charm with a brad for the handle. I used a little superglue in the hole, to give it more of a firm hold. Below is the open box, with some bits 'n' bobs in:

If you are not familiar with Funky Fairy papers then please pay a visit to Funky Fairy Inspirations where you will find some gorgeous free downloads towards the bottom of the sidebar list, and if you hurry Shaz has a fabby free download kit available for a few days only, so don't miss it. You can also purchase kits from the Funky Fairys Papercrafts Shop.

I do hope you'll join us this week for our challenge, we love to visit your blogs and see your creations, and why not tell your friends about it too, everyone is welcome. And below is that gorgeous clock kindly donated by Emma as an extra prize for this weeks challenge.

Now who wouldn't want to win that? Enjoy your day everyone xxx

A Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge #36

'Love is the Air' this week over on A Spoon Full of Sugar.

I thought now was as good a time as any to try and tackle Steve's valentine's card.

The heart patterned panels are a stamp, which was actually the first ever stamp I bought, so it's nearly 5 years old, I've always loved it. Stamped and heat embossed with black sparkle embossing powder coloured with H2O's and sakura black glaze. Sentiment was done on the PC then cut the sentiment hearts using Fiskars shapecutter. The background is red paper and I have stamped flourishes around the edges and slightly onto the sentiment heart as well. Added black ribbon around the edges as a kind of frame and added a little red button to each corner with some narrow black ribbon tied through. Sorry the picture isn't very good, it's nice and sunny out, so was hard to get the right light, but I guess we should'nt complain about any sun that we are lucky to get.

Roary The Racing Car Birthday Card

This card is for my godson who'll be 3 on Christmas day. His mum asked me to make a card to be sent into Channel 5's Milkshake, so they can show it and read out a birthday message to Nathan on Christmas morning. I did a card for this also last year, and silly me forgot to record it and so did his mum...lol, but they did see it, so I must make sure I set the Sky+ to record it this year. Last year's and this year's theme was Roary the Racing Car, so I had to try and do something different this year. Firstly I'll show you last years card:



The Roary image and logo were printed from the Milkshake website as images to colour. Coloured with H2O's, printed sentiment from PC and coloured. I took some photo's of Nathan in his Roary hat and scarf sitting on the stairs, then printed the photo out and cut round Nathan and placed him on Roary's back tyre so it looked like Nathan was sitting on Roary.

Now for this years card.




Nathan has now become Big Chris...lol. Thanks to a link posted on Image-n-ation (sorry can't remember who posted it) the site is called Face In Hole. It's a really fun site where you can put a face on animals, celebrities, kids characters etc... Anyway I was well chuffed when they had this Roary image. The background papers and tyres are from Kanban. The lettering is black corrugated card cut in the CB using the Hippy Chic alphabet set.

Secret Crafters Saturday Challenge #11

This weeks SCSC is a sketch set by DT member Donna. Loved this layout and I'm sure I'll using this again in the future.

I've used the 'Snow Loved' Sugar Nellie stamp and coloured using H2O's and a Sakura Stardust pens. The coloured cards and papers are from my scrap stash and the patterned snowflake paper is from the Pheobe & Maude Winter Kit from Pollycraft Designs. The sentiment circle is a metal rimmed tag I had in my crafty stash and added a purple glitter snowflake and silver peel-off sentiment to it. Finished with some blue gems.



Below is this weeks sketch.

Snow Loved

This is another of my new Sugar Nellie stamps, 'Snow Loved'.
I've coloured using sakura stardust pens and twinkling H2O's, so it's quite sparkly. Mounted on to pale green card embossed with the CB 'Swiss Dots' folder. The paper is from my stock from last year and but believe it's Dovecraft. Finished with silver peel-off sentiment.



At least I managed to get to play with two of my new stamps, the other two are not christmas ones, so I'll have to wait a bit longer before I can play with these, as I've got to try and finish all my christmas orders, hopefully before Tuesday as I'm off up to visit my mum in Scotland for a couple of days. When I get back hopefully I'll only have my own Christmas cards to finish. Please will someone remind me to start the Christmas cards in July next year...lol

Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far xxx

Christmas cards for friends

These cards are part of my nan's card order, these are for her friends.

I have mainly used decorative ribbon here and layered some of the poinsettia's and added another poinsettia to the bottom corner. The verse sentiment was printed and matted on to red and gold card.

I used the cuttlebug holly embossing folder here. Some of the outlines were highlighted with an embossing pen then heat embossed with gold tinsel powder, then coloured using H2O's. Matted on to red and gold card and a gold bow was added to the stem. The sentiments are gold peel-offs.

The santa was stamped then embossed with the gold tinsel again and coloured with H2O's. I've used the clear sakura stardust pen to give the snow on the ground some sparkle (it can't really be seen in the picture). Matted on to red and gold textured card. Red and gold text ribbon runs down the edge and the bottom sentiment is printed and again matted on to red and gold textured card.

Ruby Wedding

One of Steve's cousin's is celebrating their Ruby Wedding this weekend with a party tomorrow evening. I've done two cards, one from us and one from Steve's mum.





The first card is from Steve's mum. The rose image has been pyramarged and mounted onto gold textured card. Peel-offs have been used for the outlines, corners and sentiment. The detail of the corner peel-offs have been coloured using H2O's.





This card is from us. I've used the diamond fold technique (you can watch a demo of this technique here ). The rose and hearts spray is from Ribbonbox and the bow and rings are from my craft stash. These were mounted onto gold embossed and red glitter card. I used the square wavy nestabilities to cut these. The sentiment and verse were printed onto gold paper and mounted onto red mirror card. Finished with some gold peel-off outlines.

Fred's Flowers

I've been meaning to use Fred's Flowers from Fred, She Said for ages, so I decided to use them on the two birthday cards for my step-daughters.



The backing papers are Floral Felicity Papers with matching die-cut swirls and flower. Brown organza ribbon runs down the joint between the two different papers. I printed the fred's flowers on glossy photopaper, they were yellow but I've used Chestnut Brown H2O with a water brush to darken them. Green brads hold the layers together. Made a gift tag greeting using brown card, striped paper and a printed sentiment in brown.




The pink flowers are on the same sheet as the yellow ones, so again on glossy photopaper. The background leaves and flowers are stamped onto light green card and stardust sakura pens were used to colour the detail. The fred's flowers are again attached with gold brads. Mounted onto glossy pink card and then the light green card again. The base card is pink with gold peel-off decorations. The sentiment is printed on pearlised pink paper matted onto the glossy pink and light green card.

The flowers on both cards have been creased down the middle of each petal.

10th Birthday Card

Well November is just around the corner and it's another very busy month for me for birthdays. This card is for my neice who'll be 10 on the 1st. I usually stick to character theme cards for her, but I can't keep up these days with Hannah Montana, High School Musical etc...lol. So I've gone for something I hope a 10 year old will like. The image is stamped and coloured using H2O's with little bit of stardust sakura pens for highlighting, then mounted onto purple and pink mirror card with a multi-coloured peel-off border. The base card is A5 and from Kanban, which has little purple/lilac flowers and dotty swirls printed on it, I've again highlighted some of the detail with a stardust sakura pen. To finish the card off I've used two felt butterflies from my craft stash, the sentiment is peel-offs coloured purple and the number 10 has been cut with my bug using the Hippie Chick alphabet on purple mirror card.

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #2

I found out about this challenge blog when visiting Cards By Helen, thank you Helen.

This is my entry for the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge . The baubles were stamped twice onto cream card using black stazon I then used Twinkling H2O's for the colourings, gold metallic and black stardust sakura pens on some of the detail. Finishing off the baubles with a touch of red and crystal stickles. Attached a green mirror card frame over the baubles and add peel-offs to the corners. The christmas greeting was stamped onto cream card and then mounted onto green mirror card. Two strips of twisted gold ribbon were stuck onto the silver base card then the sentiment and framed baubles were attached using foam pads. The card was finished off with 3 sequin stars.





Below is the sketch for this week's challenge layout.