Autumn on the way

Yesterday was cold, wet and windy; we don't seem to be in for an Indian Summer sadly.  Last night I sat down and played with my Hobby Art stamps and made a large scene, also  finished up this card using a scene that I made the other week on Jenny Maye's course.  I really like the sketch at Card Patterns Challenge this week, but chose to flip it on its side as I wanted to use my grass and fence punches.  It's not a card that I wanted to add a lot of embellishements to, mainly because it's another masculine card for the stash, so I used an idea Jenny sugegsted for watercolour scenes that go wrong:  highlight an area and punch a shape out of it.  Except I haven't got any reject scenes (yet!) and stamped and painted a scrap to get my circles...  However I did have a smudge on my card, hence the cows "escaping" from my scene:)

   DP is by Flair Designs, brown cardstock was Cuttlebugged with a twiggy design, turned on its side.  My card is for the following challenges:
The Wild Flower - Fall colours
Clearly I Stamp - Owls and their habitat - this looks like perfect Barn Owl territory to me!
Cowgirl Up Sunday Challenge - Anything Goes
Card Patterns Challenge - sketch

Q is for Quick & Easy - or not!

This week's ABC Christmas Challenge is Q for Quick & Easy.  A sketch is provided and the optional extra challenge is to make more than 1 card using the sketch.  I love this sketch, but every time I try making a card with a grid system on it I measure, I cut, I lay out my DP and find that somehow my carefully cut and measured pieces aren't level and the tiny differences really irritate me!  So this is not a quick card for me:).

It was a great one to try out my Katzelcraft stamp which I think will be a good one for Christmas cards, so I stamped it with Versafine black on a piece of Glimmer Misted cardstock.  There's a bit of glitter added to the flourishes using a glue pen.  I mounted it on mirricard (how do you photograph mirricard without all the reflections?LOL) and used metallic DP from Craftwork Cards for the background.  The sentiment is also from Craftwork Cards and the gems are Hero Arts. 

I may have another go at this challenge using something else to mark the divisions, maybe thin ribbon.  In the meantime, it's another card ready for December:).

Cupcake Daydream

I've been meaning to use this image ever since I saw it used by Ann, a very talented fellow blogger. I finally got round to using it with this lovely Truly Scrumptious sketch. The Challenge also requires doodling which is not my strong point. I did a few doodles with my white pen on her coat and brolly, hope this counts! As I worked on the card it turned out to fit quite a few challenges...

• Truly Scrumptious Sketch Challenge (with doodling)
• Pile It On Challenge - let them eat cake
• Copics Colour Challenge - G02, Y11 & V15
  
• Basic Grey Challenge - embossing (I dry embossed)
• One Stop Craft Challenge - die cuts (yellow border)
• DareU2 Digistamp Challenge - punched shapes or diecuts
• Charisma Cardz Challenge - decoupage
• Crafty Cardmakers Challenge - 3D elements

Whew! I don't think I've ever fitted eight challenges into one card before. Here's how I made it:
Digi image from Hambo Stamps was coloured with Copics - hooray I had two of the three colours, my collection is growing :). Umbrella and some of the cupcakes cut from second image and decoupaged. Cakes, umbrella, hat and coat have Glossy Images to give them a sheen, coat has white stitching doodled on it. Basic Grey Cupcake papers used - of course :) - with their edges distressed. The yellow has been dry embossed with a swiss dot Cuttlebug folder, dots emphasized with the distress ink, then a die cut border added with a Woodware punch. I've decoupaged more cupcakes at the ends of the ric-rac, they looked unfinished without.

I had so much fun making this card, I hope you can tell from the end result :).