Double embossed Christmas

 

We've had a hectic weekend, two days at the races and a house full of visitors, so no crafting has been done at all since Thursday!  Here's a fairly quick card I've made for Christmas that I finished last week.  It uses a Papermania stamp that I bought at the NEC which is much in demand.  It's HUGE!  I used Distress Inks to make a background then heat embossed it with purple hologram powder called WOW that was another NEC purchase.  It's matted onto black then added to a dry embossed background with some ribbon and a lattice punch strip adding.

My card is for the following challenges:

Truly Scrumptious - sketch

Totally Papercrafts - black & purple

Paper Sundaes - pick your toppings (embossing, punches, ribbon)

No Time to Stamp - non-traditional Christmas colours

Dutch Dare - clean & simple

DT Post - Phindy's Place Friday Challenge #19 - Oh baby!

Welcome to this week's Phindys Place Challenge, this week we're challenging you to make a card for a baby or a child.  I've used the adorable image Something New with the cat and cat looking dubiously into the crib.  The gingham digi paper that I used to paper piece the frill on the crib and for background paper is a freebie from the lovely Bev Rochester, I've changed the scale for the frill and made it smaller than the background paper.   If you visit her blog they are available as downloads, check out the RH column and you'll find a link.  The card is based on this week's Sketch and Stash Challenge and I'm also entering it for the current ABC Challenge - B is for Blue , for Stamp Something's Digi Challenge and Stampin' for the Weekend's Anything Goes Challenge. 

Flowers are made with my Little Claire die, leaves are punched and I've used a Martha Stewart doily lace punch on the border.  Sentiment is Papermania.

Sketch Saturday gets Christmassy

For some reason I'm struggling with my House Mouse new stamps, I've tried colouring this with watercolour pens, Copics, pencils, you name it!  I think this is the best of the bunch using watercolour pencils.  I went out yesterday and visited a Do Craft stockist.  I was quite snobbish about their stuff when I started out but I've found that they do have some nice stuff if you take the time to look.  This DP came from a lovely pad of papers in traditional Christmas colours which inspired me to make a card based on this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge.  Sentiment and diecut holly are from Craftwork Cards.

DT Posting - Cooking it up with Katie #23 - get fruity, paper piecing, circles

Good morning and welcome to another Cooking it up with Katie Challenge!  Today the recipe is:

• get fruity
• paper piecing
• circles  so these are the elements you need to include in your project.   

This week's challenge is sponsored by Robyn's Fetish and the DT was kindly given images to use; my image is called Daisy Days.  I've based my card on Sketch'n'Stash's latest sketch, with my new stash being the image and neglected stash is the Papermania DP that I bought a while back that has been sitting in my drawer.  


Daisy's hat, dungarees, shirt and flower are all paper pieced in the citrus colours, lime ribbon around the Martha Stewart picket fence is from stash, as are the gems, and the sentiment is from Craftwork Cards.


The colourscheme fits Papertake Weekly's  theme of white and bright and Crafty Cardmakers' Challenge is to use punches (picket fence).  Finally, the ABC Challenge is back to A is for...  with August.  Daisy Days looks like a summery August gal to me (it's raining outside as I'm blogging this LOL) and I'm entering her for this challenge too.

DT Post - Phindy's Friday Challenge #8 - Happy Birthday!

Hooray for Friday, it's a lovely sunny day and I don't have to work today! It's also time for the Phindy's Place Friday Challenge, which this week is to make a birthday card or a birthday project. You can never have too many birthday cards and there are certainly images to suit everyone in Phindy's shop, check out the DT's cards, not one uses the same image:).

I based my card on sketch #68 from Inspirational Card Sketches, they are having a choose your own sketch week. I enjoyed looking through the old sketches and then picked the one from last week after all that lovely browsing! My colourscheme came from Paper Sundae's kraft and blue challenge.

Kraft always seems to me as though it should be on a fairly clean & simple card and also this isn't an image that wants too much fuss around it. So I coloured Love Letter with Copics and edged it with Distress Inks. The DP behind it is Basic Grey, seniments are Papermania. The kraft paper has a pattern so I used the WS and I've stitched in white to fill in those wide empty spaces:).

Long Fair Plaits

I've made a card for this week's Lili of the Valley Challenge, using their gorgeous stamp of a girl on a swing. I feel that I have to do something about the sheer quantity of cards that I have, last night I sat down with boxes of them and sorted them into saleable - or not. Happily there were a lot more in the first pile:). I found a couple of cards that used this image and remembered how much I like it - so here it is getting another airing! I've sent for polythene bags for cards, not sure of the best way to sell them, we shall see... Also today we went to Ikea and bought lots of lovely storage - for DH's flytying stash and for my crafting stash. So watch this space:).

The card follows Bev's pretty sketch and is fairly simple. Image is coloured with Copics and edged with Distress Inks, DPs are Papermania from an A5 pad, flower is an E-line Prima.

This card is also an entry for Paper Sundae's Favourite book/poem/fairytale challenge. I loved to read books by Monica Edwards as a child. Both her series set in Sussex and the one in Surrey featured girls with long fair plaits, though Lindsey cuts her plaits off to try to make money to fence her beloved yew tree on the farm after cattle are poisoned by it. I see this as Lindsey on her swing in the yew tree. I still have the books and they are being republished so that at last I have the set, as well as a biography of Monica Edwards, from which I learnt that the girl with the plaits is Monica's daughter, Shelley, who sat for many of the drawings in the books.

Big & Bold

This card is, hopefully, to remind me that spring and summer are just around the corner. Yesterday there was snow on the ground again but thankfully it has gone again and the weather is milder. I noticed a Bigger is Better theme at Saturday Spotlight which gave me the idea for this card, which uses all 6 Nesties to make one giant flower. This started out life as a small rectangular card but then the pretty DP was swallowed up by the flower, so I added another panel of it and used a larger card. The only stamping on this is the Penny Black sentiment, so an unusual card for me, I normally love to stamp lots of images on my cards. I also added lots of Prima flowers and Papermania brads. Sorry, no idea who made the DP, it's one of the first packs I ever bought...

I'm also entering this card in Dutch Dare's Summer in Winter Challenge, Cute Card Thursday's Blooming Gorgeous theme, Spoonful of Sugar's open theme and Pile It On's Enough of Winter Colours.

Sunflower Smooches

There's a different challenge at House Mouse this week, to use a faux grid. I made mine on a piece of lightweight card that I'd sprayed with Glimmer Mist. I scored lines 1/2" apart and emphasized them with some Distress Ink in Scattered Straw and Peeled Paint. The image is called Sunflower Smooches, isn't it beautiful? It's another Ebay bargain stamp :), it's coloured with Copics. I've followed the sketch for this week's CPS Challenge. The background paper is Basic Grey's Nook & Pantry, I've used a punch on the Glimmer Misted paper and green card to make the flowers, ribbon, brads and little green label are from stash and the sentiment is Papermania. Phew, I think that's the lot!

Almost all the snow has gone now, it's just sticking where it was piled up or on north facing nooks and crannies. I do hope the threat of more tomorrow is wrong, though it does mean I'll get more crafting done if I can't get to the outside chores :)

Birds Go By

We all need "thinking of You" cards and I've made a card that will work for most people, using Phindy O'Neill's tranquil digi image, Birds Go By. I've more-or-less followed Dawny's sketch at this week's Papertake Challenge, within the limitations of the size of paper scraps I was using up :). The PDs are both Papermania, as is the sentiment. The brown cardstock was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and I've gone over it with chalks to highlight the script. The image was paintedusing Distress Inks and a watercolor pen.

Last Minute Gift

You know those clever people who make "one card, ten challenges"? This is the opposite - ten cards for a last minute gift, which fits Secret Crafter's Challenge for the next fortnight. All the images are by Elusive Images, the sentiments are Elusive Images, Hero Arts and Papermania.

I made a circle mask and sponged Distress Inks in the circle for all the cards. The first 3 images are all from the Retro Vases themeplate, left sentiment is Hero Arts, other two are Papermania.

More Retro Vases...











Then there are a few bird images from the Let Your Heart Sing themeplate.










The cards are for a friend who always give home made chocolates for Christmas and who enjoys receiving home made presents. I've made her quite a few bags and this year is time for a change.

The last couple of cards are from Retro Vases again; the last one with the teazles on the soft yellow background is my favourite. All 10 cards took just over an hour... sometimes simple is good.

Create4Fun - Bev's sketch

I've come across a new to me challenge blog called Create4Fun, which has a very usable sketch by Bev. I've used it to make a fairly straightforward Christmas card, using Papermania stamps that I bought at the NEC. I stamped the group of smaller trees several times in blue Stazon onto pale blue cardstock, as well as the bigger tree. The bigger tree is cut out and mounted onto 3d pads. All the trees have scribbles of gluepen and glamour dust as well as stars on the top, sorry this doesn't show up too well in the photo. The two fabulous metallic papers are from Craftwork Cards, silver ribbon from stash. All the metallics make it challenging to photograph, sorry :)

Spread the Love - A Card for Jaimie

There can be few cardmakers who haven't heard the sad story of Jaimie Cates from New Hampshire, who was the victim of a shocking crime when her mother was murdered and she was left for dead. Denise and Erin have set up a Stamp Something for Jaimie blog, asking their cardmaking friends to join together and send a card to Jaimie.

I've used a Lili of the Valley stamp that I think works well for this. I've based my card on the sketch from this week's Cupcake Crafts Challenge and I've followed the recipe from Lili of the Valley's Challenge to use 3 papers, 2 stamps and 1 type of embellishment.

The image is coloured with Copics, edged with Pine Needles Distress ink and some tapestry stamps of leaves. The second stamp is a sentiment from Papermania, the 3 papers are also Papermaina. Flowers are Prima.