One in a Million

My DH's birthday was last weekend.  Shamefully, I had not made a card for him in time as family events overtook us and I did not have the time or inclination for much crafting.  This card is not really a birthday card, but it is for him.  And yes, he is 1 in a million.

This was inspired by a card in this month's Craft Stamper.  I've used number stamps from Dimension Fourth that have been sitting in my stash and Basic Grey Sugar Rush DP, the stick-on letters and hearts come from the BG pad.
My card is entered for the following challenges:

Paper Sundaes - Something from your stash
Creative Belli - Numbers
Stamp, Scrap and Doodle - Anything goes

Going Dotty for Coffee

A while back I bought some House Mouse decoupage by Joanna Sheen, adorable but not my first choice for projects, I love to get inky.  But when I go to craft club each month all I need to take  is a pair of scissors, the decoupage sheets and my reading glasses, so much simpler than taking everything including the kitchen sink with me:).  It's time to put some of my cutouts together and I've tried to have a bit more fun than simply putting together the decoupage as one image.  The sentiment and feet stamped at the bottom of the pink matting  are from Dimension Fourth, I've used used very coffee coloured dotty card from My Minds Eye for the main DP and added a couple of the mice holding up a sign that says "How have you bean?"  A dotty ribbon from the lovely candy that arrived from Kathy yesterday completes the card, which I am entering for the Simon Says Going Dotty Challenge.

Have a Mice Day - House Mouse Challenge

Here's a last minute card for this week's House Mouse Challenge, which is "Sweet". I don't have any House Mouse stamps with sweets on and I thought I wouldn't be able to enter this itme round. Then I remembered that I bought some House Mouse decoupage from Joanna Sheen and sure enough, there was a chocolate box sheet in there. I now remember why I don't do decoupage much - it was hard work cutting out all those fiddly layers, I chose to amputate tails in a few layers LOL!
I still got some stamping in - the paw prints and sentiment are from Dimension Fourth.

Shabby Chic

This week's Challenge at Simon Says is Shabby Chic, which immediately lent itself to lots of ideas with stamps and colourschemes. I decided to use my Parisian Lady stamp from Dimension Fourth and really, she is more chic than shabby! However the colourscheme and the distressing fit the shabby part of the theme so hopefully Parisian Lady's not too offended by the theme :). I've used Judy's sketch from the Quixotic Challenge, which works really well for this image.

Image is stamped with Tea Dye Distress Ink onto cream card, I've drawn the ink into the image with a waterbrush and sponged the edges of the card with more Tea Dye and Worn Lipstick. The dotty background paper is a magazine freebie, torn, crumpled and with lots of Distress Inks added before matting it onto pink DP. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder on the circle, again sponging Distress Inks onto it before matting onto a scalloped circle. The sentiment is Papermania and the amazing lace is from my sewing stash, the ribbon is stitched into the middle of it. I think it came as part of a bargain bundle. There are some tiny pearl gems added to the image and one of the paper tears.

Oh, the Simon Says Challenge has a DT call out at the moment, check out the blog for details. I'm entering this card and keeping my fingers crossed :)

Happy 18th Birthday Will!

Happy Birthday Will! All of a sudden my baby boy has grown up! All the way up to 6'3" or is it 6'4"? Anyway, while stuck for a card idea I had the mad idea of stamping 18 champagne bottles. Now these would have been ideal as a digi so I could re-size them but I don't have a digi and I do have a very good champagne bottle stamp from Elusive Images, so I cut out 18 of them, coloured them, stamped some on the card, glued some down and popped some up on 3d foam pads. The green bottles are coloured with H20 paint and the red and gold are Promarkers. With a few foam pads under corks and the number stamps from Dimension Fourth the card was finished.

I had an idea there were lots of challenges around at the moment for birthday cards but I could only find Charisma Cards anything but Christmas challenge :)

My Grafico Challenge #23 - sketch

It's time for another My Grafico Challenge, this week the DT have used a set called Arabian Paradise, which is the prize for this week's challenge. You can follow the colour challenge and use purple, cerise and gold and you can follow the sketch, or you can even do both :). I've followed the sketch for my card and, as I've used a long thin card I've stretched my Arabian palace image out to fit it, one of the useful things about having a digi image rather than a rubber stamp is that you can tinker around with the size and/or proportions to make them work for your card. I've printed the palace onto paper that was sprayed with Glimmer Mist and added a gem to one of the spires. This is cut out and stuck onto DP from Artylicious. The rest of the card uses the Glimmer Misted paper again, with a sentiment from Dimension Fourth and a flourish stamp from Personal Expressions, with a few more gems added for interest.

Daisy for Danni

Danni has a great blog, she runs the Flutterby Challenge each Wednesday and always has lots of interesting cards to show. Earlier this month it was her 40th and here's the card I sent her.

Daisy from Sugar Nellie, one of my favourite images, is coloured with Copics and Promarkers, the edges of the image coloured with Distress Inks. The second circle has a Creative Images stamp embossed onto it and the numbers are from Dimension Fourth, glued with silicon to give them shape. All papers are Basic Grey.

Danni's celebrating her landmark all month, so have a great day, Danni!! :)

Whoever stole summer, please give it back!

I'm a bit down in the dumps today, mainly because of the weather. Rain, rain, rain :(. We go on holiday in a week, Windermere where we're going had 1 1/2" rain in a day last time I looked at the weather records. I know, if you want hot summer sun don't book a holiday in England. Just like last year, we booked lateish in the hope that the hay would be in and the kind friend who looks after the horses wouldn't have that to worry about. Of course, just like last year, the hay is sitting wet and uncut...

Anyway, enough whingeing, I've tried to make the sun come out with my card today. Slightly bizarrely, I've begun by looking at the Pile It On Challenge, the Challenge that encourages combining as many challenges as possible in one card. I've not entered this one before, but it's theme of mostly orange sounded fun. I've not managed to combine it with too many other challenges, but I've certainly cracked the orange thing :).

I've used the sketch from the Sketch & Stash Challenge, which is always fun to take part in. I need to list old, neglected and new stash for this one. The gorgeous House Mouse image is negelcted stash, sent to me by my blogging friend Janet ages ago. I love it and haven't wanted to use it up, how silly is that! The sentiment is new, it's from Dimension Fourth and came as part of my July stamps. The bright yellow flower is old stash, it was a freebie with a magzine ages ago and the orange spotty K&K paper is new stash from Newbury Art Stamps show.
I've coloured in with Copics and a grey Promarker, the card candy (faux brads) are from Craftwork Cards and I changed my beige ribbon to orange with my Copics.

The third challenge I've entered is another I've not entered before: Pink Elephant Challenge this week is to use animals on your card.

Three Challenges - One Birthday Card

This week I have the exact match for one of the colours for Copic Colour Challenge this week and two others that are close - hooray! I have Pea Green and I used R32 Peach and YR02 Light Orange with the green.

I followed a very nice Sketch from this week's Simon Says Challenge, first time I've entered this one, though I've seen Dawny P's sketches all over blogdom, they're always good ones to work with. I'm also entering the card for Papertake Weekly's Challenge, which is a take your pick colour combi from any or all of: pink, black, white, yellow, green, grey and lilac, plus any other colours. I've used pink and green from the list.

On to the card: I chose to use one of my favourite Leanne Ellis images from Sugar Nellie - she's called Poise. As you know, I've coloured her with Copics. Other colours I've used are skin white, chamois and pale blue. When I'd coloured her, I didn't like the plain background so I coloured it blue. I was worried it looked uneven and went over it with the blender pen. It's still uneven but now it's in a nice mottled way, not a nursery-school colouring book way. At least I hope so :). I think I need to learn more about the blender pen, it doesn't work the way I think...

The sentiment is from Dimension Fourth and I've used pearl gems on the flowers and beside the entiment. The papers are lovely double sided papers by Crate Paper, from Stamp Attic, all edged with Distress Ink, and I've added some blue grosgrain ribbon.

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 :).

Corrosive Challenge #20 - Summer Fun & Papertake Weekly Challenge - My Favourite Things

Janet's Challenge this week over at the Corrosive Challenge blog is Summer Fun. When I got this month's stamps from Dimension Fourth I just knew I had to use them for this :). Papertake Weekly has a theme this week for its challenge of My Favourite Things: vanilla, mint choc chip, chocolate, strawberry and coffee, with a flake on top. Mmm, that about sums up my favourite things :).The set has two different ice cream cones, a tall ice cream glass, an ice cream cup, various scoops of ice cream and some sentiments for good measure. They'll be really fun to use.

I found a pack of yellow pearlescent DL cards in the drawer, I think they were a freebie with something. Anyway, tall and thin was just what I wanted for my card. I stamped the cone twice and used foam pads to give the top of the cone dimension. All the scoops were stamped separately and glued together to build the sort of leaning ice cream cone that you just know is going to melt before you can eat it:). Colouring is done with Copics and Promarkers; I've used Glossy Accents on quite a bit of the ice cream. Yumm....

My Time to Craft - no patterned papers

My Time to Craft has a challenge this week to use no patterned papers. This is a card using June's Dimension Fourth Project Club stamps, very slightly modified from the suggested project.

I've cut away the right hand side of the card and used the long thin piece of card from this to stamp and silver emboss the border. It's mounted onto silver and then lilac card. I used a border die cut to make a bright pink border and stuck it to the card. The flapper girl is watercoloured (she's brighter in real life). I've added some Stickles and a gem to her, also some gems to the RH border, and tied a ribbon round the image, after mounting it to silver card. She's then matted onto the lilac card. The greeting is an Elusive Images stamp, matted onto the bright pink, the silver and then the lilac card.

There are two girls in the set, Grace and Serenity. This one is "Serenity" though I think she might be better named Patience, she looks like some who has been waiting a while for something or someone!

Old Bikers Don't Die, They Just Get Exhausted - Corrosive Challenge #16

Here's my entry for this week's Corrosive Challenge; Janet has given us a great sketch to work with this week. The card is for a great friend of ours who is 80 next week and it has a vintage Matchless motorbike on it. You probably think this is because he used to ride Matchlesses in his heyday. Well nearly right. He did - but he still does ride - though he has given up competing in sprints a couple of years back after a hip replacement.

The Matchless stamp came from Dimension Fourth, DH also has a couple of Matchless languishing in the garage now he's riding his Triumph, so the stamp will get used again :). It's black embossed onto white card and watercoloured, then cut out and mounted onto red cardstock. The number stamps are also from Dimension Fourth, stamped with white pigment ink onto black. The silver metallic papers are from a pack I got from Craftwork Cards, which work well with the bike. I've used plain red and black cardstock to mat and layer the images and I drew a border round the red card behind the bike with a Pigma pen, it looked a bit plain without it.

In case you were wondering, part of the engine is gold and the rest is chrome, I'm told this is an image of a 7R :).

Stampin' Out Alzheimers - Mojo Monday Week 88

This week Mojo Monday is supporting the week of fundraising for the Alzheimers Association. In my sidebar there's a link to this virtual stampathon, for a small donation to the charity you can join in the fun too...

I've used one of my new Shirleys2Girls stamps, the sentiment on it says: "Friends and wine, the older the better" which I think works quite well for a 70th birthday card :). The image is coloured in with the Koh-i-Noors again. I've doodled dots on the scalloped circle with a Pigma pen, for interest. All the papers are from Graphicus Guild membership; the green card is Bazzill card. The numbers and the "th" are Dimension Fourth stamps and I've used plain green brads on the corners.

Mojo Moday Week 85

Here's the Paris set from Dimension Fourth again, used for Mojo Monday's sketch this time. I've used Basic Grey papers from the Infuse 6x6" pad. The girl's coat and hat are paper pieced from the same pink that I've stamped the Eiffel Tower onto; somehow it looks much browner on the coat...

The lace is from my sewing cupboard and the lovely ribbon with Hotel Chocolat stamped along it comes from their chocolate gemstones; it's a terrible sacrifice to buy (and eat) the chocolate to get the ribbon :), but I manage somehow! The flower is edged with Ciao marker and the little brown flower is coloured with it too. There are little pink gems on her hat and a faux brad from Craftwork Cards at the centre of the flower.

As you can see, this is my favourite stamp to play with at the moment :)

Ooh la la!

I made this card for my "sister" Vanja's birthday, last week. Vanja does wonderful cards, she's a big fan of Sarah Kay and of Elizabeth Bell, check out her blog, she's so creative. The card uses my Dimension Fourth Parisian kit and is mainly coloured with sepia watercolour pencil. There are some Stickles highlighting the table legs, the flowers of her hat and on the cupcakes. The dog is stuck on with a foam pad to make him 3D. I had a lot of fun making this card, the image is one of my favourites at the moment.

To find your Prince... you've got to kiss a lot of frogs :)

My "Sister" Janet got her birthday card in the mail today, so I thought I'd post a picture of it now it's arrived :). I used my April stamps from Dimension Fourth and had a lot of fun with this card. The coach is stamped onto the scalloped circle and a mask used to stamp the princess inside the coach. Just the body of the coach is stamped onto card and coloured with watercolour pencils and Stickles, this is curved and added to the card with silicon glue. "Princess" is repeatedly stamped along the pale pink starry paper and the frog prince is again added with silicon glue to make him 3D. I computer generated the extra wording that I wanted to add.

Janet has blog candy, you can enter until her birthday, 8th May. Have a wonderful birthday Janet!

Twisted Thursday #9

It's the last day to enter Twisted Thursday's challenge again! Every week I plan to enjoy this challenge before the deadline and every Sunday here I am making my card :). This week there is a great sketch to use, with the twist of adding dimension.

I've done this literally and metaphorically; I've used my owl stamp from Dimension Fourth AND I've popped him out from the card using foam pads :)!

The owl is coloured with Copics, his branch is stamped with Timber Brown Stazon onto yellow pearlescent card, it's leaves are coloured with a Marvy le Plume pen. The fab DP at the bottom was a gift from my crafting friend Anne, who bought a paper pack at Ally Pally and kindly gave me the 3 owl pages in it as she felt I could make good use of them. I could and I have. :) Thank you very much Anne! The little pink scrolls come from the free bird stamp with Craft Stamper magazine, when I'd completed the card the corners looked a bit empty. Oh, and the owl has green gem eyes.

Friday Sketchers #49, Cupcake Crafts Challenge #37 and Spoonful of Sugar Challenge #39

I've been playing with my Elusive Images Butterfly theme plates and come up with a card that fits three challenges.

I've used Mumur's lovely sketch from Friday Sketchers as the basis for my card. The colour theme comes from A Spoonful of Sugar's challenge this week: Blue & Green. I remember the old adage that "blue and green together should not be seen" and thought it would be interesting to see if I could get enough contrast into my card. And finally, Caryn at Cupcake Crafts has challenged everyone to use at least five different embellishments on a card, in honour of her five children! I have used: a brad, Stickles, gold thread, butterflies and flowers.

All the stamps are from the Elusive Images themeplates, Butterfly Poppy Collage and Butterfly Daisy Collage. All are coloured with Inktense watercolour pencils, highlighted with Stickles and with Glossy accents. The Happy Birthday is a Dimension Fourth stamp, the main image is mounted onto Bazzil card and the background paper comes from a free download from Making Handmade Cards, who sell printable papers and offer really great lessons and how-tos, as well a a free trial pack of designs.

I really like this, however it's quite a heavy card, don't think I'll be posting it to anyone :)!

Ismaki Challenge 27/04 - sketch & violet

Ismaki has a great sketch to use for this week's challenge, with the twist that there must be some purple included in the card. I've used a new stamp set that I bought at Ally Pally last week from Dimension Fourth The set is their Parisian stamp set and it includes a map of Paris, a little dog, and the threee stamps I've used here: Ooh La La, Eiffel Tower and the woman drinking cafe au lait.

This is the first time I've bought from Dimension Fourth. They sell clear stamps that I'm really liking using. They give a sharp image and seem to take various inks happily without the problems I've had with a better known brand. I think you'll be seeing more of Dimension Fourth on here... :)

I've watercoloured the woman in purple and edged the oval with chalk ink. The Eiffel Tower and the text are stamped in Adirondack Eggplant onto a greyish purple cardstock from the Stamp Attic, it's the plain side of one of their lovely florals. The cardstock was edged with a decorative blade on my paper trimmer.

The flowers are made from Bazzil bling and the cardstock, using two flower punches. I've stamped leaves behind them I' don't have anything to cut leaf shapes. The ribbon is from Stamp Attic and the sentiment is from a Hero Arts clear set.