Another DT Birthday

Today it's another St Luke's DT Birthday - this time it's Anne's turn - hope you've had a fabulous day Anne.  Here's the card I made her, featuring another super cute Greeting Farm stamp.

Coloured with copics, matted onto black and fussy cut.  Mounted onto DP with a nestie shape for added interest.

I think Anne will be playing with her new techie gadgets so hope you're having fun with your IPAD ;-)

Blingy placecards

I have loads of prep to do today for the charity Christmas fair tomorrow - we received over 350 in the last 2 weeks!  So crafting time is limited but when I saw my two favourite challenges could be combined, and could provide some place cards that I will need for my first Chritmas dinner in a couple of weeks, I couldn't resist a quick play.

The Waltzingmouse Sketch challenge is to make 3 place cards - I needed 6 so I doubled up - and this week's Less is More challenge is to bling it up - so there is some subtle bling on them too.    These are for our Book Group Christmas dinner so I started by printing off the 6 names of the guests in red in Scriptina font.  I then stamped the gorgeous WM deer bauble in matching red ink on the same card stock and cut them out with the corresponding nestie.  There are 3 delicate snowflakes on each bauble and I chose to add my bling to the centre of each with a tiny 1mm gold gem to match the gold bauble top which is embossed over the original stamp.

I'll be round to visit the other blogs later in the week after the fair is done and dusted.

Birthday throwdown

Today is the birthday of one of my DT members over at St Luke's - the lovely Lynne so I made a card for her and now I know she's opened it, I can share it on here.  Bizzarely 3 of the 6 of us have birthdays this month so watch this space for another card on Monday!

I decided to play with this week's colours at Colorthrowdown  as I love teals and blue and brown, but I think my "red" is more dark pink than real red I must confess.  I  coloured the cute little greeting farm stamp with copics, cut her out and layered her up on some decorative papers that had the colour throwdown colours.  The sentiment is stamped and embossed in chocolate brown pearlised ink.

http://colorthrowdown.blogspot.com/2011/11/color-throwdown-169.html

Hope you've had a fabulous birthday Lynne!

Playing with snippets

I haven't made it into the playground with Jules and her campaign to climb our snippet mountains for a few weeks - I've been using my snippets but I've not had time to mention them in my posts.

So tonight I thought I'd have a play and instead of starting with an image and seeing what snippets I could use I thought I would put the snippets centre stage and see what I could create using a few snippets as my starting point.  I managed to come up with a couple of cards.

 For my first card I picked 3 little snippets that were about 4 cm wide and different lengths in tonal shades, cut them to size and used them to cover a 6x4 card.  I added a length of black vintage seam binding ribbon to one side, and stamped some simple floral stamps in black directly onto papers and finished with a fabric flower.  I think it turned out quite well but perhaps the ribbon is a little stark.

For my second card I started with a kraft base and a strip of white hammer left over from an A4 sheet when making another cardbase.  I then dug into my "even thinner" snippets drawer and found 4 green strips (well one was actually the bit left over when I trimmed the dotty strip for the my first card)  I stuck these into rows on the white card just large enough to cover the area of the spellbinders leaf die and cut it out of the centre so I could use the negative.  The bonus is I have a lovely stripy leaf to use on another card which has gone into my "die cuts drawer".

If you've not been to the playground before - here's the link for this week - the gates will be closing in a couple of days, but don't worry - they'll be open again for a new week on Sunday so do join in the fun!  http://jules-alwayswithaheart.blogspot.com/2011/11/jules-crafty-snippet-challenge-week-46.html

Tara x

LIM Silhouttes

This is my second post for today, so if you're looking for my Guest DT spot on Sundays with Chrissie, then please scroll down for the details of my two projects.

Today is Saturday which means Less is More's new weekly challenge which this week is Silhouttes.  I got a new inkadinkadoo set at Stamp Magic in Doncaster a few weeks ago and haven't had time to play with it yet so this was the perfect opportunity.  I decided to make 3 cards, one with each stamp from the set, and as our challenge at St Luke's Charity Card Challenge this month is Christmas, they are my "mid month reminder" for our challenge and will be going into the stash of cards for the Christmas Fair in aid of St Lukes next Sunday.   Our challenge can be found here http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/11/christmas-is-coming.html and you have until the end of the month to play along and be in with the chance of winning some Lili of the Valley stamps.

 

For the first card the image is just simply stamped in the traditional silhouette black onto some snowflake DP and layered on a thin black mat before adding to a white base card.

 
The second image is the one that drew me to the stamp set - I embossed it with silver fine detail powder on black card and added a thin silver mat.  The base card is a lovely ice-blue and I finished it with a small Merry Christmas stamp from PTI embossed in black detail glitter powder over the top of Santa.

For the final card I embossed the image directly onto the small 3 inch green base card with vintage gold powder and finished with a simple thin gold ribbon.

Catch you all later

x

Sundays with Chrissie Guest DT Spot

I am really thrilled today as I have a Guest DT spot over on Sundays with Crissy which is very exciting :-D  The challenge this month is to create a Christmas themed card or project in non-traditional Christmas colours - that is specifically to not use red or green.  I have a couple of Crissy's wonderful images that are Christmas themed and couldn't decide which to use so I decided to do both!

For my first card I printed her very jolly Santa on kraft paper and coloured him just using polychromos pencils from Faber Castel -eek no copics!  I usually use copics for skin and under colouring and finish with pencils for detail but as this was kraft paper I knew the copics wouldn't show up so had to go straight in with pencils.  I'm actually really surprised and pleased with the results - I didn't use sandsoder for blending either as it doesn't work on kraft so did any blending with dry stumps.

Once coloured I cut him out with a nestie and then used the same nestie sets to create a frame with kraft card.  I darkened the frame with a couple of shades of distress inks and added a pearl shimmer spritz for a vintage yet frosty feel.  I added some  DP from the My Minds Eye Signature Christmas stack to a 7 x 5 inch kraft base card.  The DP is mostly brown but has frosty white glitter and snowflakes so I finished the card with a snowflake cut with a large MS punch again from kraft and coloured with picket fence distress stain and some pearl smooch with a large pearl center.  The sentiment is a Craftwork Cards die cut.

As he's entirely in kraft - I'm entering him into the lovely Spotted Chick's That's Krafty Thursday challenge too.

For my second card, I used one of my favourite ever images from Crissy - Mudzie Plays Christmas Tree - I just love Mudzie and the humour of the image.  This is a very large 8 by 8 inch base card, again kraft - I have a weakness for it can you tell ;-) so I printed Mudzie quite large to match - this is the joy of digi for me over rubber - you can decide on the size to suit your project.

This time Mudzie is coloured entirely with copics and to avoid the red and green this time I took my inspiration from the Happy Holidays sentiment which is cut from a DCWV paper stack and I went with purples and teals.  I had lots of fun creating Mudzie's fur so have done a close up shot below.  Once I'd coloured him, I added stickles to the tinsel to add sparkle and texture and added glitter and glaze to the baubles, star and lights.  The candy canes I feared would be difficult without red - but I think they work well in pale teal and are just mint flavoured instead of fruit!

The teal DP is an old 12x12 sheet so I don't know who it is by but its is rich flocked velvet.  The purple sheet on top of that is from the same DCWV stack as the sentiment.  I added a little silver mirri for Christmas shimmer and to echo the lights on Mudzie I used my MS lights punch on black card and then tried to punch it through the material they make sequins from but it got stuck :-(  I really wanted that sequin look however, so I drew round one of the bulbs MANY times and cut them out by hand....  It did take ages to do but I'm glad I persevered as it does give a lot of shine and shimmer as I'd hoped it would.

I've loved Guesting over with Crissy this month and hope you've enjoyed my shares - do pop along to this post and join in the challenge with your red and green free Christmas themed projects.

Thanks for stopping by today :-)
Craftilicious
x

Peace on earth

I'm back again with another Waltzingmouse Christmas card for the Christmas Card Challenge and this time I'm tackling the April Challenge which was to include snow on your card.  I've used this weeks Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge as the basis for this card so its an entry for that too.

This is my interpretation of it - a snowflake covered background of decorative paper with some elegant black ribbon and a couple of layered buttons.  I stamped one of the gorgeous baubles from 2011 Holiday Oranments in silver onto black shrink plastic - cut it by hand and made a shrinkie-dink bauble as my dangly element.  I finished with a simple sentiment in black to match the ribbon using the Say it Loud Winter Hoilday set.

I'm really having fun making all these Christmas cards one after the other so am glad I decided to play along late in the day.

Catch you later.

Christmas leaves

Here is the entry for March's Waltzingmouse Christmas card challenge which was to make a minimum of 3 identical cards using kraft, red and white or cream as your colours.

I made 3, but my husband really likes them so thinks they should be "our" Christmas card for this year so I may make more.  I started with a square kraft base card and stamped 3 outline holly leaves from Waltzingmouse Festive Foliage and embossed it with white detail powder and embossed the berries over the top in red.  I continued this red and white theme into the sentiment which is from Say It Loud Winter Holiday, embossing the small "bring on the" in white and the larger "Merry" in red.  I think it's one of the most balance CAS cards I've ever made and really love it.

As it is a one-layer CAS card featuring leaves, I am also going to make it my second entry into this weeks Less is More challenge.

Thanks for visiting.

Tag you're it!

This weeks challenge at CASual Friday is to make a clean and simple tag or a card with a tag on it.  I don't really make tags - this is my first - and I'm not really thrilled with it but am not sure I can do anything better so it will have to "do" for my entry this week.

I used the colours from this weeks Annabelle stamps challenge which are to say it with "lime, black and white" as my starting point and took a lime tag from a pack I bought a couple of years ago from paperchase.  I then used one of the fabulous birthday pressies from my OH - this gorgeous new stamp and die set from Hero Arts/Sizzix and stamped and embossed the trees and snowflakes directly onto the tag with white detail ep.  I stamped the reindeer in black on white card and cut him out with the matching die - I used a black gel pen to highlight some of the details on him.  The sentiment is from the same set and is embossed in black glitter ep.

Here are the links to the challenges if you want to play too.

http://cas-ualfridays.blogspot.com/2011/11/cfc28.html

http://annabellestamps.blogspot.com/2011/11/say-it-inlime-black-white.html

Craftilicious x

Leafy thanks

As its the second Saturday of the month, it's one layer week at Less is More and this month's one layer challenge is "leaves".

I started with a linnen base card in antique white.  I used a couple of leaves from the Big Bloom Chrysanthemum set from Waltzingmouse and inked them with scattered straw DI.  I used the kiss technique to stamp some thankful words from Say it Loud, also from Waltzingmouse in spiced marmalade DI to give the leaves some texture.  I stamped "thanks" from the same Say it Loud set in marmalade again and added a couple of tiny golden gems to the start and end of the word.  I used one of the phrases I'd used in the kiss technique to add to the sentiment and am therefore entering into this weeks aud sentiments challenge also which is thanksgiving or thankful cards.


http://simplylessismoore.blogspot.com/2011/11/week-41-one-layer-leaves.html

http://audsentimentschallengeblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/challenge-41-and-winner-of-40.html

Off to look after my OH who has been ill since my birthday earlier this week - I think he's suffering a Samson like loss of strength after his haircut last week!

Craftilicious x

Flashback Friday Banner

At Flashback Friday today they want us to back and find the first ever banner we made - well for me, that was easy as I didn't have to go back to far!  I made my first on in January this year for my friend's housewarming party and here it is in situ:

I cut the banners themselves from a K&Co 6x6 pad just with a gillotine and cut the letters forming the word "Welcome" with my Cricut and added a little distress ink to keep with the vintage feel of the papers.

I made her this housewarming gift to go with it - I bought the frame and decorated it with stamping, inking and some paper flowers.

Details of the flashback Friday challenge can be found here - and its a fun way to blog if you're short on new projects to share  http://flashbackfridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/11/flashback-friday-170.html


I might even get a bit of time to make something new tonight so catch you later.

Quixotic Paperie New Sketch Challenge

Quixotic Paperie is where I get a lot of my stamps from - they stock a lot of US ranges - and they have just started a new monthly sketch challenge, which I have been meaning to enter and am just about getting in before the deadline - must try harder next time!

The first sketch was done by Mary J and its a lovely one

For my take on it, I've used one of the new Kraftin Kimmie winter stamps which I got from Quixotic Paperie last month.  He's called Chilly Chickie and I just love his expression - he's coloured with Copics and cut with a nestie.  A bit of glitter gives him a surface to skate on.

I used some plain blue paper and spritz it with perfect pearls for a cool shimmery feel and added some pale blue from a DCWV stack - this has Christmas writing all over it but its too small to see on the photo.   The sentiment is actually from Stamping Bella (also from QP in the UK) and comes with one of the winter uptown girls.

There are still a couple of days to play in this first challenge - here's the link if you want to join in
http://quixoticpaperie.blogspot.com/2011/10/up-to-challenge.html

Less is More in Orange and Red

Well it's still Saturday, just, but I am very late with my weekly entry to Less is More this week as we're off work for a few days and have been out and about today - this morning getting my OH's hair cut short for the first time in 28 years!  It's been a little traumatic for him.......

Anyhow, here I am with my orange and red effort - very simple and not at all ground breaking - but I seem to be lacking mojo tonight.

I cut a strip of red card and die cut some flowers from it using my new Xcut dies - I used the "waste" rather than the flowers which is an idea I borrowed from my blogging mate Jenny on this card which deservedly won the ColorQ challenge.  It's popped up on dimensional tape on top of some orange card and I cut one of the flower centre dies out and popped though on foam squares with some orange gems (which were a prize from the Annabelle Stamps challenge I won).  I then repeat stamped a PTI birthday sentiment in orange ink above and below to form a border.

That's me for the evening, will visit other entrants tomorrow and may try something a bit more exciting as an entry myself.

Night all
x

off the edge.......

This week's challenge at CAS-ual Friday is to make any card but to have an element of it which falls off the edge of the card itself.  I am most definitely in Christmas card mode at the moment - I seem to be struggling to make anything else - so here's is my off the edge bauble card.

I've really struggled to get a decent photo, but now the dark nights are in my chances of daylight photography are pretty limited and isn't helped by my choice of silver pearl as a base card - sorry :-(   I have used the smallest nestie bauble die to cut out lots of tiny baubles from a double-sided snowflake DP in red and blue, and also from silver mirri.  They were arranged patchwork style using pop dots for dimension and the silver ones at either end "fall" off the edge.  I finished with some blue ribbon (which is a much better match to the blue DP IRL than it seems) and repeated a Merry Christmas sentiment from Waltzingmouse underneath just in black.

I do love the effect and thought I could make a few but it was quite fiddly to put together so maybe I need a more simple design to mass produce!

Catch you laters - Craftilicious x

For Your Inspiration Guest DT

Today I have a Guest DT spot over at For Your Inspiration, which is a great fortnightly photo inspiration challenge if you haven't come across it before.

The current challenge is to use the following photo to inspire your project

I decided to interpret the colours, shapes and reflective surfaces and create a Christmas card.  Now I know the photo with the invited pool doesn't scream Christmas but the golds and shimmers (and the fact that I've been in Christmas card mode for a while) all lead me down the Christmas theme.

I started with a black pearl 6 x 4 base card and cut a black, cream and gold spotted shape from DP from Papermania using a Spellbinders Label, and then I drew around the outside on some shiny cream card and cut it out by hand to create a thin matt.  This echoed the colour of the building and the spots the lights.  I took a gold oval (again cut with a Spellbinders die) to represent the shape of the building and the reflective quality of the pool and stamped a Christmas sentiment from Waltzingmouse and embossed that with pewter embossing powder.  The reflections made the photography difficult but the sentiment reads "to aid in the attainment of PEACE on earth".

I hope you like the card and are inspired by the photo - can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!

Tara (aka Craftilicious)
x

OH NO 4-0!

One of my friends is hitting the dreaded 40 this week and we're going out tonight to commiserate celebrate.  Naturally this needed a special card and as soon as I saw the new release of "uptown girls" from Stamping Bella I had to have them as they are all so perfect for my friends.  For the 40th I went with this version as the matching sentiment is so apt for the lady in question:

I decided to paperpiece their evening wear, and have done a close up below so you can see the detail.  On the black glitter paper I just added some pencil lines to show curves.  On the teal dress I used 3 shades of BG copic markers to add some depth of shading to the natural folds and some stickles to the trim.  I love paperpiecing - its such a quick way to "colour" a card and can be just as effective as colouring on the right image.  I edged the image, sentiment and mats with pewter embossing powder by "dipping" them into the ink pad.  I like the uneven look it gives.

The rest of the colouring is done with copics and I finished the glasses with a little glossy accents.  I used the same DP for the teal dress as one of my background papers - I like to do this as it ties the card together - and then I selected another from the same pad (DCVW linnen stack) to add some contrast and interest whilst keeping in the same colour family.  A strip of black glitter covers the join and ties into the black dress and the "FORTY" was cute using a sizzix alphabet strip again from black glitter paper.

If you like the "girls", then make sure you check them out - they are Canadian but are available in the UK from Quixotic Paperie here and there are some awesome Christmas ones out now too.  They are much bigger than standard bellas so make excellent larger cards (mine is A5 size)

I'm entering the following challenges with it:

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes with bling
Sweet Stampin - Anything Goes
Totally Papercrafts - Glitter It
Phindy's Place - Paperpiecing

Thanks for stopping by.

Craftilicious x

St Luke's Christmas

For our theme over at St Luke's Charity Cards Challenge this month we decided to be easy on you after the dreaded "boys" cards that so many of you didn't like last month!  So our theme this month is a seasonal one - just make something for Christmas - any theme or style as long its Christmassy then anything goes!

Our sponsor this month is Lili of the Valley and they have kindly donated a pair of matching stamps from their super cute collection - I love LOTV images as they are great to colour.   We have these super cute mice making cakes and a pair of "recipe" sentiments to go with them as prize this month:

For my card, I decided to use one of my own LOTV Christmas stamps which I hate to say had not seen ink until now despite me buying in over 12 months ago!  It will be getting inked again soon though as its nice and quick to colour but makes a striking Christmas card.

I coloured her with copics and stuck mostly to Christmas reds and greens and just added some very pale blue-green for the snow along with a little glitter for that frosty sparkle!  The DP are from an old DCWV Christmas stack and the sentiment is cut from one of the DP sheets.

Now it's your turn - we can't see what you all come up with to get us in the mood for Christmas....

http://stlukescharitycardschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/11/christmas-is-coming.html

Craftilicious x