Spring Birdsong

I got my Spring stamp kit from Whiff of Joy last week, only just had time to cut a couple out and ink them up. Isn't this the most beautiful Spring image?

I used the sketch from Paper Sundaes as the basis for my card, another great to work with sketch, thanks! I've kept my card clean and simple, so I'm entering it for Saturday Spotlight's Keep it Clean theme. The ABC Challenge this week is P is for Paper Piecing; one of my favourite techniques; I've paper pieced Willow's dress from a lovely small-scale Basic Grey Wisteria paper.

All DP is Basic Grey Wisteria, Whiff of Joy image is stamped with Memento London Fog and coloured with Copics, as well as some Stickles on the flowers in Willow's hair. Distress Inks edge the image. The paper punch used is Martha Stewart Hydrangeas, card candy is from Craftwork Cards, white ribbon from stash is coloured with Copic pen.

Love the image, now to try to find the time to use the others in the kit... does anyone have any spare time going spare please? :)

Looking forward to summer...

This simple card is based on this week's Friday Sketcher's Challenge, it's the first card I've finished with images from Friday when my crafting friend visited. The image is by Stampin' Up, inked with Memento ink in London Fog, coloured with Copics. I LOVE this stamp set, seems to be not on sale at the moment...

I've made it a Get Well card to send and I'm entering it for Creative Card Crew where that's the theme for the week, it's also Pile It On's theme for this week. . Paper Sundaes' theme is Distressing and Saturday Spotlight has "do the mess around" which also calls for inking, distressing or tearing.

The image and mat are cut with a deckle edged Nestie, the blue cardstock is dry embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and its edges distressed with scissors and then ink. The summery DP is My Minds Eye, flowers are Prima and sentiment from Cornish Heritage Farms.

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.

Snowflakes Gone Wild

Can't seem to get away from snowflakes... Snowflakes Gone Wild is this week's Challenge at Saturday Spotlight and since it's snowing again today I've got out the snowflake DPs and played with a digi image from Shirleys2Girls. I've used this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge sketch and I'm also entering Mr Penguin for Fussy & Fancy's Winter Challenge.

I printed my digi out once onto white cardstock and once onto some Craftwork Cards DP with silver snowflakes. The image is coloured with Copics, cut out and added to the background. The main DP on the card is more Craftwork Cards silver snowflake paper, the textured linen style card has more snowflakes embossed into it with a Cuttlebug folder and there are 3 more felt snowflakes attached to the card just in case there weren't enough :). The sentiment is from Woodware, it's a clear stamp so I've shaped it to fit the circle.

Here we are with more snowflakes falling and Sweep taking a flying leap for the door:

Wish I Was On The Beach...

We've got icicles...
but we went up to Membury for some fast food and there are some seriously impressive icicles at the service station, these are a good 6-8' long.
So I decided to make as warm and sunny a card as I could :).
This week's House Mouse Challenge is "On the Beach". I don't have a huge collection of House Mouse stamps yet, but I did pick this one up late last year and haven't yet inked it up. I used a fun sketch designed by Denise for Stamp Something's Challenge this week, and I added a sentiment that fitted both the House Mouse idea and the theme at Saturday Spotlight - love, without hearts - meaning a card representing love without using hearts anywhere on the card. Great theme!

The image is coloured with Copics and some Glossy Accents on the bottle and the seashells, it's edged with Broken China Distress Ink. The papers are K&K, the sentiment was made with alphabet stamps. Do you feel any warmer looking at my card? I hope so :)

Quick Christmas Flowers

I've a couple of cards to blog today, first of all this is a quick and easy card that uses a downloadable freebie image from Fred She Said, aka Tracey. I have bought some lovely images from Tracey (lost in the hard drive crash, must sort out) and she is very generous with her freebies too. The flower is ready coloured, I've layered it and used foam pads to give it depth. Once the card was assembled I added lots of blue and silver Stickles.

The flower is mounted on a circle cut from mirri, the sentiment is Hero Arts, paper from an old Dovecraft pack. The flowers make a very simple but effective card, thanks Tracey! I'm entering the card for a few challenges:

• Saturday Spotlight - Christmas Flowers
• A Spoonful of Sugar - non-traditional colours for Christmas
• Pile It On - Tinsel Town
• Stamp Something - Glitzy Somethings
• Paper Play - Christmas without red or green
• Creative Card Crew - Christmas
  

Have a Magical Christmas...

I'm still struggling with conjunctivitis in both my eyes, wasn't able to go to the Hennessey (Newbury Races) for the first time in years to my great disappointment. I've had dreadful withdrawal symptoms for my crafting and I've made this card over the last couple of days, which has been a struggle as it's so hard to see what I'm doing. The matting has been cut smaller and smaller on shapes as I've tried to keep it even, to the point you can barely see it all! I have so many ideas buzzing around in my head, just can't wait to get back into action :). But at least I've managed to make something :).

I've used a Shirleys2Girls digi image of a snow-woman. You can buy her as a digi or you can buy the clear stamp for a bargain price while it's still in stock. I printed twice onto white and once onto card sprayed with Glimmer Mist. The idea was for my snow-woman and the hills behine her to be paper pieced from white onto the Glimmer Mist. However I wasn't really thinking and glued the snow-woman onto blue hills. So how did I get out of that one??? Well thanks to Craft Stamper magazine, which came on Friday, it was easy... I read an article in there about watercolour scenes which removed colour with bleach. I used my waterbrush, dipped into a little bleach, and painted until the Glimmer Mist had gone from the hills. I wondered what it would do to lines from the inkjet printer, happily they remained unchanged - phew!

Extra colouring on image was done with Copics, hat and gloves are cut out a second time and foam mounted. Papers are Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses, I've Cuttlebugged some more of the Glimmer Misted paper and rubbed Distress Ink in Dusty Concord across it. The "Snow" sentiment (torn and mounted onto mirri card) and the snowflake brads are Papermania, the image and the dry embossing have some Glamour Dust sprinkled on.

I'm entering this for several challenges:

• Basic Grey - followed Tara's sketch
• Saturday Spotlight - Hat's On - use an image with a hat
• Charisma Cards - Anything Christmas
• Quixotic Challenges - Tearing - the sentiment
• Papertake's Challenge - Christmas Cracker
• Simon Says Challenge - Winter Love - wouldn't we all love a white Christmas? Mmm, maybe as long as it doesn't last as long as the snow last year :)
• Cuttlebug Challenge - Glitter
• Crafty Creations Challenge - Christmas
• Whimsy Stamps - Christmas
• Dare U2 Digistamp - Glitter

Winter Willow

Today I got the chance to play with some of my new acquisitions from the NEC, as well as my Whiff of Joy Winter Stamp Kit.

I began with the Whiff of Joy Challenge's very pretty sketch by Jane.
The colourscheme came from this week's Copic Colour Challenge, which uses rose red, spectrum green and robin's egg blue and
Saturday Spotlight's Challenge is "repeatedly useful" - using an image repeatedly, the snowflake stamps were ideal for this.

I stamped Willow and masked her so that she could sit on the sledge and I coloured her with Copics. The snowflakes were stamped in Broken China Distress Ink. Papers are Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses. The ribbon is organza coloured with spectrum green Copic (came out darker than I expected) and the sentiment is from Craftwork Cards, again coloured with Copic. I punched a couple of snowflakes from white card and added some Stickles to them and to the stamped snowflakes.