Happy Birthday Marie-Ann

My niece turns 21 this month. Unfortunately we can't make it to the "do" as small children and evening events over 2 hours drive away are not a good combination. So we're heading down to the wilds of Lincolnshire this afternoon to say hello and drop off a card and gift.

 

And this is the card I've made for her:

 

 

This pretty image is an A Day for Daisies digi stamp and I coloured her with Promarkers and inked the edges with Distress Inks. I used an old book page (from The Iliad, if anyone's interested! :D) for the background and coloured it with Distress Inks and Perfect Pearls (it has a lovely shimmer in real life). I used Tim Holtz Idea-ology numbers, coloured with alcohol ink, and added a die cut flourish (from a Memory Box die) and some flowers and a stamped greeting to finish.

 

I think this came out really bright and pretty but without being too little girly. I hope. :)

 

I'm entering this card into a couple of challenges:

A Day For Daises - School supplies

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Read All About It

Sneak peek revealed

I almost forgot about this. I posted a sneak peek a couple of weeks ago... I couldn't reveal all on here initially as I was sending the finished items to a friend who might read my blog. But she has since received them and it's safe for me to post the pics up here. :)

I made these for my friend as she is having a bit of a scary time health-wise and was going in for an operation so I wanted to send my best wishes and cheer her up a bit.

So I sent a card:

For this card I had a play arond with the stamping with bleach technique featured in a recent issue of Craft Stamper magazine. I used Distress Stains on white card and then stamped this gorgeous Indigo Blu design in bleach onto the inked card and used a paintbrush dipped in bleach around the edges. I hand-stitched a border, matted it onto some pink glitter card and added some layered flowers with a button centre (and a dab of Rock Candy Stickles on the petals of the smaller flower and a little sentiment stamp cut into a pennant shape.

I also made her a funky, grungy-style necklace, with an (I hope) life-affirming sentiment:

I used a lot of Tim Holtz Ideo-ology stuff to make this necklace; the frame, the key, the foliage flowers and leaves, all of them coloured here and there with alcohol inks. The face I made from FIMO using a rather funky push mold I recently aquired. I used a bit of Perfect Pearls to give the "skin" a bit of colour and sheen and painted on some details before sealing with a couple of coats of clear varnish. You can't really see it from the front but I filled in the aperture in the frame with seed beads and Glossy Accents (partly to give a more solid base to glue the face onto) and I used more Glossy Accents to add some seed beads to the face to help frame it a little. The chain, jump rings and fastener I bought from a local beading/jewellery findings shop. :)