Bundle of Joy - five challenges

Bizzy Bec's is a new challenge blog launching on 15 August (see my earlier post for candy details). They have an opening for two Design team members and have asked those interested to make a card using their sketch. I've stretched the card a tad into a rectangle, I wanted to use my new Elizabeth Bell stamp and didn't have a large enough square card to make my idea work :)

I've used masking on my image and am entering it for the Stampin' for the Weekend Challenge, as well as Pile It On, whose extra challenge this week is watercolours. My Time to Craft has the theme Floral Frenzy, which fits the flowers in the image and the lovely Prima flowers added on. Lastly Papertake has a colour combi challenge - I've used yellow, pink, green from their list.

So... I caved in and bought one of the exquisite new Women's stamps from Whiff of Joy. I kept passing them over as I didn't have any weddings/new mums/babies to make cards for but in the end I had to get one :). I wanted to give Willow some background so I masked her off and added trees from Elusive Images, grass from Stamps by Judith and flowers from Craftwork Cards. The sentiment is from a big squashy stamp that I was given when I began stamping, looks like a magazine giveaway stamp. The trees and grass use Versafine Olmpic Green ink and I've used Antique Sepia Versafine for Willow. She's watercoloured with Distress Inks and a waterbrush, baby's gown is Worn Lipstick, Willow is Scattered Straw and Mustard Seed. The Scattered Straw and Worn Lipstick are both used around the edges.

The papers are Basic Grey's Porcelain collection, just so soft and pretty. I've shaped the image, papers and card with my Martha Stewart Flourish punch. To get things to line up I measured and drew pencil lines on the back! The flowers are Prima and the brads Papermania. Love the image, I'm wishing I bought more of the collection, even if my credit card isn't :).

And all because the lady loves Milk Tray... Stampin' for the Weekend #6 & Papertake Challenge

I've gone ever so slightly over the top with my card for Stampin' for the Weekend's challenge :). The challenge for this week is Strawberries Dipped in Chocolate... yum. There have been quite a few pink/brown challenges, and very nice they are too, but this is a red and brown theme, slightly different. I'm putting it as a second entry to Papertake Weekly's Challenge, which I hope is allowed, it just fits their theme of My Favourite Things so well ;).

When I was looking at Dimension Fourth's stand at Newbury last week, I remembered that I'd bought a stamp set for a box of chocolates from them, having seen some wonderful artwork on their stand, but hadn't used the stamps. Now I can justify a mega stamp collection, but not one that sits unused :), so I decided to get to work with the set for this theme. There wasn't any artwork on the stand last week but I talked to the very helpful woman who was demoing on the stand who told me about a mocked up box of chocolates and how it had been put together. So this is my take on the theme:

Detail:
I found two different sheets of brown pearlescent card and some pink pearlescent card to stamp my chocolates onto. I embossed all of the chocolates to give them a realistic look. I don't have any brown embossing ink or powder, but I found that, if I worked fast, I could emboss my Memento dye ink with clear powder and get the effect I was looking for. I've never tried this before, I'm so happy it works, gives me a lot more colours I can heat emboss now!

The chocolate box itself is gold embossed onto Bazzil card; it's hard to see all the lovely detail in the stamp as I've given it a lid with an acetate centre. This is the first time I've stamped onto acetate, in fact it's the first time I've ever used it on a card. I started with a box lid with "Thanks" stamped on it, but when my elder son came home from work late last night he claimed the card for a birthday party this evening. I tried to remove the acetate from the first lid to change it over and noticed that it had smudged even after a long drying time. So this lid was stamped around midnight, with "Happy Birthday" and left overnight to dry thoroughly. I don't think the midnight bit's too important, but the long drying time certainly is :).

Inside:
The chocolates are all mounted onto foam pads, I've used a double layer of foam pads around the box lid to make it stand out. The card is made from the same Bazzil card as the box and I've trimmed an inch from the RH side to use my new punch that I got at Newbury last week. It's a Woodware punch, about 1/5th the cost of the Martha Stewart punch I intended to buy; I have no problem buying expensive stamps but I can be such a miser when it comes to other craft stuff :). The papers come from Craftwork Cards, as does the brown greeting button. For the first time in ages I've used peel-offs, on the box lid. They just looked right...

Inside the card I've added more chocolate (you can never have too much chocolate, right?) and the greeting. Oh, both sentiments are Elusive Images. It's going to be difficult to let this card go, it's different from anything I've done before. It was a lot of work, but I think it's worth it :).

Stampin' for the Weekend - double or nothing

This week Stampin' for the Weekend gave a choice of two sketches; I chose to use Donna's pretty sketch with the flower arrangement.

I used my new Gorjuss Girl from Sugar Nellie and coloured her with Promarkers and Copics. The sentiment is an Elusive Images one stamped onto heavyweight vellum with black Brilliance ink. It's tucked under the papers at one side and left free the other side. The papers are all K&K and I used a new punch that I bought at Newbury Art Stamps for the lacy border.

I don't have one of the lovely punches to makes ferns/leaves, I was drooling over them last week and couldn't justify the cost. But I had a brainwave: my friend Marion who isn't cardmaking at the moment lent my a lot of her stash, including a punch of a Halloween tree. The branches, trimmed down, make great leaves! One less thing to spend money on... The flowers are a mix of plain white coloured with the Promarkers and ones cut out with punches. I've used pearl gems for the centres. I love the new Sugar Nellie and I do like the card, it took a lot of thinknig about though :). With the pinks and purples I've used I'm going to send it to my PostPal.

Tea Dyed Daisy - Stampin for the Weekend #3 & Sugar Bowl #13

I'm having a second try at Lilian's sketch for this week's Sugar Bowl Challenge; I'm not totally convinced by the colours on my earlier card :).

I've often thought that Daisy, who is such a lovely Sugar Nellie to colour in, would look good as a monochrome image. So I've stamped her with Tea Dye Distress Ink and dragged some of the ink into her clothes and hair. I suppose the answer is that you can't go wrong with such a great stamp, but I think this looks good.

With Stampin for the Weekend's Challenge #3 in mind, I've kept to the soft neutral colours, she's A Whiter Shade of Pale, which fits their Rock'n'Roll 60s Challenge. The papers are Antique Cream Creative Tones from Papermania, I've added some Stickles to the flowers in Daisy's hair and to the daisies in the paper. The images are mounted on Kraft paper to fit the Sugar Bowl Challenge. There's ribbon in Daisy's hair and on the card, and that's it, a pretty clean and simple card.

Dusk till Dawn

New Challenge blogs seem to be popping up every day and there is more and more choice of challenges to take part in. If only someone could sell some more hours for the day so I can keep up with them all... :)

Stampin' for the Weekend is a new one, with my friend Vanja as one of the Design Team, having seen her lovely card and their great theme - From Dusk until Dawn - purple and yellow - I wanted to be sure to take part in this one. I went with a really nice sketch by Dawn from Inspirational Card sketches challenge #19 . I also included the Secret Crafter's challenge #35 for this week, which is bling, using some glitter, some gemstones and some Glossy Accents. Cute Card Thursday's Challenge #63 is to use punches and die cuts; I've managed to include this on the card too. Phew! I think four challenges in one card is my record, I'm always in awe of those who manage to fit umpteen challenges into one card, which takes some multi-tasking! OK that's the challenges, now on to the card :).

I have used all Elusive Images stamps for the card; the Graphicus Guild stamps this month include the bird and birdhouse, the brilliant "Best Wishes" stamp is from another, older, Guild stamp set. The papers are all from the papers included with the Guild membership. The birhouse is embossed with Adirondack Eggplant onto patterend paper, with a gem on top of it. The bird is stamped onto pale yellow Bazzill card and then again onto a pale yellow patterned paper, in Eggplant dye ink this time. I've used the birdhouse stamp around the edges for the leaf pattern. The bird is mounted onto the card using silicon glue and then painted with Glossy Accents, which seem to have turned the Eggplant a bit blue.

When I assembled the card I was going to use the thin piece of the sketch to the left for the sentiment, until I remembered the pearlescent card that I used a butterfly punch on a couple of days ago, the negative shapes were just too pretty to throw away so it went into the scrap box. I think it fits the sketch really well.

I stamped the "Best Wishes" onto the card when it was assembled, in Eggplant again, and added faux brads to the corners and gemstones below the butterflies. I've coated the brads in Glossy Accents and dropped some Prisma Glitter on them to give them a bit of bling. I also used a tip from a workshop I went to at MadeByYou last week for the ribbon: I used double sided tape wider than the ribbon, with a narrow sticky border each side of the ribbon and again, coated it in the glitter more some more bling. I think this is a great idea, may come in useful for any accidental sticky tape left showing :) .

Love the Dusk Until Dawn theme, great one to work with and it came together with the other themes quite well, I think.