Friday Sketchers Challenge #45

There's a lovely sketch from Claudia on this week's Friday Sketcher's Challenge. I've used the only Gorjuss Girl that I've not yet made into a card, stamped in Timber Brown Stazon and coloured with watercolour pencils. The papers I've used are a co-ordinating set by Crate Paper, bought from the Stamp Attic . I think this is among my favourite sets of paper ever, I've kept using it and buying more... lovely, almost oriental feel to it.

The Coleridge quote comes from an Impression Obesession clear stamp set with yet more trees in it.

Sugar Bowl Challenge #7 & Secret Crafter Challenge #24

Secret Crafter's Saturday Challenge this week is to base a card on your favourite colour scheme. I love yellow and made a Spring card. Of course I realised it needed other colours to work and I added in a spring-like yellow-green and some orange.

Spring/Easter is also the latest Challenge at the Sugar Bowl, I've used a Leanne Ellis stamp and am entering it for this challenge too.

I've stamped Annie Talking to the Birds several times and paper pieced her onto a yellow background. Her skirt uses the same print that's in the background, the dots on it and the flowers are coloured with Sakura 3D glaze pens, Annie is coloured with watercolour pencils and the birdhouse is paper pieced and mounted on a foam pad. The papers I've used are various free ones that came with magazines, the yellow flower was a magazine freebie and the orange centre is a white flower coloured with a Copic pen - brilliant tip for any shade of flower you need! Spring is in the Air is a clear stamp from Dovecraft and the button next to it was bought at a craft show over a year ago...

Card Sketch A Day

Susan Constanza runs a great blog called Card Sketch A Day - which is exactly as the name implies :). Crafters apply to her some months ahead of time to use one of her lovely sketches and create a couple of cards with it. She was kind enough to accept some of my cards for March and April and today I have been published on her blog as Sketch #207!

The words take centre stage in this sketch, so I decided to use my WIGL theme plate from Elusive Images. WIGL stands for Words of Inspiration, Gratitude and Love, in case you are wondering :). They are really useful for cards that are not for occasions, birthdays etc.

The first card sticks very closely to Susan's sketch, even down to the heart shaped buttons :). I made these with my friend Kandy, fusing organza scraps to template plastic and cutting round a metal heart template with a soldering iron. They are "stitched" down with gold beading wire, I've curled up the ends of it into swirls. The sentiment is gold embossed onto a Nestabilities oval, papers from the Stamp Attic.

The second card has wording gold embossed on a die-cut oval, which has a few flowers from Stamps by Judith stubbies stamped onto it, which fit the wording. The lovely warm floral papers are from Stamp Attic again, as are the Prima flowers.

Inspirational Card Sketches #9

Dawn has a fun sketch to use on ICS this week. Like Karen on the DT, I used a Gorjuss Girl stamp from Sugar Nellie, I coloured her with H20s and watercolour pencils to match the lovely turquoise/brown papers from the Stamp Attic. I ddin't like the white card she was stamped on against the papers, so I stamped round the edges with some tapestry stamps to soften it a bit. The flowers on against the brown wall she's sitting on are stamps from Craftwork Cards and the border beneath is a fussy cut piece of co-ordinating paper, I've cut round the circles.

I tried cutting and tearing paper to make the long border to the left and didn't like the effect, so I came across some mulberry paper greetings from Papermania that I think came in a goody bag when I was first starting to make cards. Celebrate works for me, I hope it's ok as far as the sketch goes :). The brown flower centre was a white paper flower coloured with Copic pen.

Get In Shape - Magnolia v Stampavie Challenge

Donna at Magnolia v Stampavie has challenged us to make a card from a shape other than a square or rectangle for week 19. I've often looked at all the fun shaped cards that are available, but not bought any. Having seen the lovely new Easter images I decided to use the church window on my card and to shape the card to echo the arch.

After a few false starts I came up with this shape and used it on a rainbow coloured glossy card that I bought at my first card craft show. Tilda and the window are painted with H20s and watercolours, the sentiment is stamped in Stazon. The gem flowers came from the Hobbycraft sale in January, I think they work well with the colours in the images.

Quite a simple card, but fun to make, thanks for the Challenge Donna :)

Sketch & Stash Challenge #6

Look at my lovely new stamps! The daisy and poppy butterfly stamp plates are from Graphicus, they are new Elusive Images stamps. These are the rest of the stamps I got with my Cheltenham winnings, there are so many ideas in my head for projects to make with these images :).

It seemed a good idea to use them for this week's Sketch & Stash Challenge. I couldn't decide which stamp to choose, so I ended up making two cards. The poppy one doesn't exactly fit the sketch though; I've not added a sentiment so that I can add an appropriate one when I send the card.

Both stamped with timber brown Stazon, coloured with watercolour pencils and some highlights added with Stickles. The papers are from my Graphicus Guild membership pack, apart from the scarlet/gold on the poppy, which is glimmer misted paper. The butterfly is stamped onto the background and then onto a matching paper, cut round and stuck on with a small foam pad.

Under the Sea - The Corrosive Challenge

This week's Challenge at the Corrosive Challenges blog is "Under the Sea". We're already at week 4! I've used an Impression Obsession stamp that I bought last year when we were on holiday in Florida. It's coloured with Marvy le Plume pens and matted onto sea and sand colours. The sentiment is computer generated. I coloured it at Stamp Club last week; the lighting wasn't great whereI was sitting and I'm a little disappointed with it. Oh, well... hopefully you get the idea from the photo :).

Don't forget to enter the challenge, this week as a great prize of Stampin Up stamps AND chipboard letters from K & Co. You've got to be in to win!

Happy Mother's Day

Here in the UK it's Mothering Sunday, here is the card that I made for my Mum. Mum loves to bake, I thought she'd love this image, spoke with her this morning and sure enough she does :)

I had another go at decorating the inside of the card, for fun. The sentiment is a stamp belonging to my friend, no manufacturer's name on it. The stamps are from Elzybells, new stash from my Cheltenham winnings :) and the papers are free papers that came with a magazine last year sometime. I've used the polka dot paper so it can take part in the Elzybell's Challenge. Images coloured in with watercolour pencils.

I'm enjoying a quiet Mothering Sunday, my elder boy is away on a school field trip so there are just three of us home. I've had a lovely ride across the Downs on my horse and have the afternoon to play in the craftroom and in the garden... Happy Mother's Day to you all.

Cupcake Craft Brown & Pink Challenge & Papertake's Something Edible

I'm enjoying using the brown/pink cardmaking stuff I bought at Farnborough from Craftwork Cards. Here I've combined the papers, faux brad, flowerand printed sentiment with a brown floral from, I think, Stamp Addicts, and an Elusive Images stamp of a knickerbocker glory, coloured with watercolour pencils.

It's my entry into Cupcake Craft's Challenge to use brown + 1 other colour and also the Papertake Challenge to make a card with something edible on it.

Inspirational Card Sketches #8 - a gift tag

I was lucky enough to get a prize from the very generous Aileen on Papercraft Planet for taking part in a Leanne Ellis/Gorjuss Girls challenge. She sent me a pad of Basic Grey paper and some yummy co-ordinating brads. I wanted to put them to use straight away and show Aileen how much they were appreciated.

The sketch I've used is by Dawn from Inspirational Card Sketches. At first I found it quite tricky to work with, I hadn't used a tag shape before and it needed lots of detail on it. I persevered and am pleased with the result, thanks Dawn, I've tried something new :).

All papers Basic Grey from the Infuse pad. Gorjuss Girl coloured with watercolour pencils. Sentiment from Elusive Images, Prima flowers from the Stamp Attic.

Have Your Cake & Eat It

This week there are several food related challenges, I want to make several cards and hopefully not combine projects, you can never have too many cake cards :). Secret Crafter's Saturday Challenge #23 is to use something cake related on a project.

I got out the co-ordinated pack I bought from Craftwork Cards and added in a Hero Arts cupcake. The cupcake is coloured with watercolour pencils, the frame is chalked. Paper, ribbon, frame, tag and faux brads are all Craftwork Cards.

Ismaki 09/11

Ismaki has a very pretty sketch by Kiki this week that I used to make a card for a friend who is not moving house but moving back into her home after nearly a year while it's been extended and had building work. So "New Home" isn't really appropriate and I opted for "Congratulations" instead.

The yellow backing paper came from the new Graphicus Guild paper pack and the butterfly is from a paper that I bought at the Stamp Attic . Both the Congratulations stamp and the lovely birdbath stamp belong to a friend who is not crafting at the moment and lent me a big box of stamps to play with. Neither has a manufacturer name visible on the wooden mount, so I don't know where they came from :(. Marvy le Plume pens used to colour the image and Glossy Accents added to the bluebirds.

Friday Sketchers #43 & Sugar Bowl Challenge 6

The latest Sugar Bowl Challenge is to make a card that doesn't have to be a Mother's Day card, but is something a mother would love. I don't want to post a Mother's Day card on here until it's been received :), so here I've tried to make an elegant, monochromatic card that I hope would be well received. I've used the latest Friday Sketcher's sketch, by Carol, which is a really nice one that was very easy to use.

The Gorjuss Girl and bird are coloured with watercolour pencils; to be monochromatic she really should have had dark hair but I think she looks great as a redhead :).

The tree is an Art Impressions stamp that I use a lot, paper from the Stamp Attic, printed butterfly sentiment, ribbon and faux brads from Craftwork Cards.

Springing into ATCs

The Stamp Attic's ATC swap for March was Spring. I made this rather uninspired ATC using some Penny Black clear stamps onto glimmer misted paper. As the 8 ATCs were made Mon afternoon for Mon evening I soon regretted having to cut round the sheep's body and four feet :)

Luckily the rest of the group were more inspired, here's their lovely work:

.

Corrosive Challenges #3

This week's challenge on the Corrosive Challenges Blog is to make a green card to celebrate St Patrick's Day. I've started with a Gorjuss Girl who is coloured with watercolor pencils. The background is Glimmer Misted paper with an Elusive Images tree and Craftwork Cards flower stems stamped onto it for some interest. There's a Good Luck sentiment written onto a label to finish off my St Patrick's Day card.

Good Luck to you all, don't forget to enter the Challenge. The prize includes a great set of stamps - but you've got to be in to win :)

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Dawny's Sketch

I've used Dawny's sketch from Papertake's Weekly Challenge to make a very simple With Sympathy card.

The Dawn Chorus is an Elusive Images stamp, the sentiment is from Hero Arts. They are both stamped onto Glimmer Misted paper which is then matted with a bronze paper I bought ages ago at a Fill-Your-Box stand at a show. The final yellow paper is from Stamp Attic, the flowery bits hopefully don't show too much as it's a card for a man....

A Week at the Races

We're home from four days at Cheltenham watching the best jump racing in the world. I'm so tired that I can't even type words correctly, back to crafting tomorrow :)

In the meantime, here is Kauto Star regaining his crown, the first time a Gold Cup has ever been won back by a horse. In second place is the heroic Denman who has had a heart problem and battled home in second. The jockey is the incomparable Ruby Walsh who has financed a few new rubber stamps...

Corrosive Challenges #2

It's time for the second challenge at the Corrosive Challenges Blog . This week Janet's inspriation is a pair of stripy pyjamas!

I went with the stripe them and chose some Crate Paper from the Stamp Attic that has some gorgeous co-ordinating papers. I watercolored a Leanne Ellis stamp from Sugar Nellie and planned to frame her in a mustard from the papers. But when I saw how well the branches on the reverse worked with the branch on the stamp I had to use it the other way round!

What's The Word Bird is from an Inkadinkado set and the little yellow flower buttons came from the Make-It ~show at Fanrborough last year, no idea which stand I bought them at.

Don't forget to join in at the Corrosive Challenges Blog this week, there is a great prize to win again, including a Stampinbella stamp among the pile of goodies. See you there!

ICSketches #6 & Secret Crafter #22

I found this lovely sketch by Dawn on ICSketches to use. I've been playing with my Gorjuss Girls stamps and combined two challenges - The Secret Crafter's Challenge this week is to use masking.

I stamped the sitting down girl and, having masked her, added a Penny Black tree and foliage from Craftwork Cards stamps. She is coloured with watercolour pencils and I used watercolours to paint in the sky, the white card looked a bit harsh otherwise. The blossom on the tree uses a stubby from Stamps by Judith.

Can't see the wood for the trees

A set of ATCs for the UKATC group's swap. The theme is Trees, which just leaves me with the tricky problem of which of my (too many) tree images to use :)

This is an Art Impressions stamp, used on a Glimmer Misted background, with some snow added to the branches with a white opaque pen. I've tried to add some hill/landscape detail with chalk inks. The ginger card used to mount the trees was part of the packaging for my Sugar Nellie stamp order the other day - waste not want not!

St Patrick's Day downloads

Lisa Volrath has another shareware free download at her site , this time it is for St Patrick's Day.

There are some great images to download, grab them while you can - and don't forget to pass on the info, this is shareware :)

First Gorjuss Card - Cats

Yesterday my Gorjuss Girls stamps arrived! I didn't do the first pre-order due to lack of money :), but when a few extra full sets went on sale at the weekend I snapped one up. They are maybe a little smaller than I was thinking but, as everyone has said who has bought them, they colour like a dream.



Karen from Sugar Nellie has issued a challenge on Split Coast Stampers to make a card using only part of the image, adding some verse or poetry and sending it to a friend. So this card is for our dear friends who until this year were "owned" by Rusty and Jessica. Rusty was a very old gentleman and his loss was not unexpected, but when Jessica was diagnosed with diabetes and swiftly went downhill it was a shock.



Foxy and the two cats are coloured with watercolour pencils. The peom is by Eleanor Farjeon, although not a cat person I've always loved this :). There's some decorative stitching on the cardstock and the flowers are by Hero Arts. The papers are from the Stamp Attic.



The next week is very hectic for me, I hope to find some more time to play with my lovely new stamps :)

Blog Awards

I've been given some Blog awards over the last few days by some kind blogging friends. In no particular order, here they are:

Thank you to Phree for giving me no less than two awards!

Thank you to Vanja for awarding my blog a "Best Blog Comments Award :).

Thank you to Shirley for a lovely blog award:

Please, if you are reading this, give yourself an award, I'm trying not to push people into having to nominate others unless they wish to :).

Thank you so much Vanja, Shirley & Phree.

The Sugar Bowl Challenge 5 - Christmas

This month's challenge at the Sugar Bowl is to make something for Christmas. I've bought some lovely grungey Basic Grey papers from Stamp Attic with the intention of using them with a Gorjuss Girl this afternoon, as I'm waiting in for the Aga man.

No Girls in the post, no Aga man yet, so I've used Wish by Leanne Ellis as an angel. She's coloured with watercolour pencils with a tree stamped behind her, with an embossing pen used to add gold detail. There's some more embossing on the paper, of a Paper Artsy swirl, not too visible. The greeting is from Elusive Images. The flowers are from Stamp Attic again. All the shapes are cut with Nestabilites.

I've seen some beautiful artwork inside cards, where I usually have spent all my inspiration on the outside and just stamp a cursory greeting :). So I've made an attempt to decorate the inside, with the greeting framed with some of the paper. I want room to be able to write inside the card, any ideas what else I could add in the way of decoration?

Mojo Monday #76

Mojo Monday has a fun sketch with a big bow on it this week, I knew just what I wanted to use and this card went together really quickly :).

I used my Leanne Ellis stamp, Wish, from Sugar Nellie, colouring it with a mixture of pencils and watercolour pencils that I've "liberated" from my sons. The teal, green and brown papers are all from the Stamp Attic, the range is called Black Market Paper Society.

Best Wishes is an Elusive Images stamp and the ribbon is the last of the ribbon from Christmas chocolates.

Sketch & Stash Challenge #5

Sketch & Stash's challenge this week has a great sketch that I had to make. The challenge requires you to use something new, that you've either bought recently or had in your stash and neglected.

I've done a bit of both with this card. The stamp is from a new set I got from Elusive Images . So this is new stash. I've used a couple of the stamps but not this one before.

I found some watercolour pencils abandoned by my sons and tried them out for the colouring. I like the effect and the pencils are now commandered stash :).

Finally the papers are giveaways with a craft magazine. Some of these papers are, ahem, better quality than others, these are of decent quality, I think they came from Simply Cards & Papercraft. I've a pile of the papers sitting waiting to be used and thought the colours on these worked really well with my image. So the papers are neglected stash.

No idea where the ribbon came from, the flowers are Prima flowers from the Stamp Attic.

I'm so relieved that I managed to finish the card, I suffered one of those locked room mysteries while making it, thank fully with a happy ending :). How can one small "Congratulations" unmounted stamp vanish without trace in a room where no one and nothing has gone in or out??? It took half an hour and some frantic sorting through the bin before it turned up stuck to a plastic storage box. Phew!

The Corrosive Challenge Blog - Week 1

Today is the grand opening of Janet's new Challenge Blog - the Corrosive Challenges Blog ! Here is my first Design Team card for her. The first week has a very straightforward, usable sketch. I chose to use my Elzybells stamps with it. The dog is stamped onto cream paper and mounted onto Glimmer Misted paper. The golden frame is also Glimmer Misted. Both sentiments came from Elzybells, as does the bee. The design paper and the bee ribbon are both from the Stamp Attic, the green ribbon behind was from some chocloate truffles I was given at Christmas. The chocloates are long gone, but there's still some ribbon left :)



Looking forward to seeing lots of entries on the Corrosive Challenges Blog :)

Magnolia vs Stampavie Challenge Week 16 - Lace & Pearls

What a fun challenge this week at Magnolia/Stampavie from Bev: Lace & Pearls. I decided to make a Tilda ATC. I'm not sure how much Tilda is a lace and pearls gal :) , so I kept her to neutral creams mostly. The background has flower stamped onto it, with Pearl Stuff centres. There is heart lace along one long side and two pearls on the opposite corners. Omunted onto bronze shimmery card to frame it.

ATC Time Again

March is going to be very busy; I'm committed to several ATC swaps and want to get them ready without too much panic. So, still on an ATC theme, here is my monthly UKATC swap: three ATCs using Sugar Nellie's Leanne Ellis images.

All use the same Glimmer Misted background. Tweet has a printed paper scrap hill, the birdhouse stamped onto it from the image, a flower in her hair and a bird from Lisa's Altered Images perching on the skewed birdhouse.

Rosey is stamped onto glossy paper and coloured with Copics and with Jelly Roll pens. The flowers have Glossy Acents on them, the background circles are coloured with a white gel pen.

Luvvy has an Elusive Images heart stamped onto the background. Again, she's been stamped onto glossy paper and coloured with Copics. Her skirt is paper pieced. Ribbon came from my blogging "sister" Vanja and the heart that she's holding is made from gold card with alcohol inks used on it.

So there they are: blonde, brunette and almost black haired :)

Drumroll for the Corrosive Challenge Blog

My blogging friend Janet has started a fun new Challenge for cardmakers, the Corrosive Challenges Blog. Janet, who lives at Niagara Falls (on the Canadian side), is a life-long crafter, who makes vibrant, fun cards. She demonstrates for Stampin Up, her other great interest outside papercrafts is in heavy rock. I can't give anything away, I am sworn to secrecy :), but I can tell you that she has some fun challenges coming up for you to take part in.

I'm really excited and proud to be part of the Corrosive Design Team, thanks for asking me Janet. Hope to see you all there tomorrow for the first challenge.