Happy Nurse's Day...

I was under strict instructions when my daughter left for work this morning that a card was expected by the time she got home.  Whoops, I'm failing badly in the 'yummy mummy' stakes this week.  Had to do this quick card at the last minute.  Thank goodness for being able to buy digis, etc online and have access to them immediately.  The image and sentiment I've used are both from a set by PC Crafter. I took them into Craft Artist to both plan the design and match up the backing paper to the image.  Just love that function on Craft Artist.

My card is also intended for the challenges at..

• Use it Tuesday - dig out your bling (gemstones on sentiment and corners)
• Craft your Passion - use gingham

Sending love to nurse's everywhere - very much overworked and underpaid.  Have a lovely day whether working, like Laura or celebrating.

Ann xxx

New Home...

Well just over a week ago my youngest daughter announced that she was going to get a flat with her boyfriend. This was Friday and by Monday they had the keys. By Tuesday my dippy little girl who can't make out of the door without forgetting something and having to come back was gone.

I take back every single word I've ever said about wishing one of them would move out so I could have a craft room - whoops somethings just splashed on the keyboard! I'm missing her so much - I'm even missing the constant sink full of pots she used to make - sigh!

Lots of my friends have sent her lovely new home cards so I thought I better get into action and do one too. This is one to send from me and my mum (who has taken it even worse that me and keeps bursting into tears and saying 'She will be alright won't she?).

The images I've used are from a set by PC Crafter and I've played around with them in Serif to get the sizes and shapes just right to make one of those acetate concertina cards I was shown at the Sheena Douglas workshop.

Think this photo shows the layers better...

I knew I would use this style of card again and again. I thought the image of the girl pulling her possessions on a little truck was so apt for Shelley and the pick up truck with the stuff piled high with oddments reminds me of Tony's dad's car when he delivered some things for them.

Materials used:

• acetate
• ice gold card
• Heart and Home clipart collection from PC Crafter
• gold border and sentiment peel offs

Challenges:

• Cupcake Craft Challenge - Digital Images
• Creative Inspirations - New or neglected - my images are new as I bought them special for this card.
• Crazy4Challenges - acetate

Thanks for looking and for all the lovely comments I receive - they really do make my day.

Ann xxx

Inspired by Sheena Douglas...

This is one of the cards inspired by the Sheena Douglas workshop I was lucky enough to attend last weekend. It's more or less identical to the one we made in class except that on this one I didn't test the 'heat resistant' acetate to it's limit resulting in a buckled creation!

Materials used:

• Sheena Douglas Scene Stamps
• black card, thick acetate
• green stazon for stamping branches on to acetate (mental note should have used same green for trees but too late now)
• white glaze pen and ultra fine glitter
• Promarkers and gold sentiment peel off

This card fits the challenge at:

• My Time to Craft - 'rip it up' - the snow scene has ripped paper to create the snowy edges
• Winter Wonderland - open theme
  

I think Sheena's idea of the folded card sandwiched between a sheet of acetate is just fantastic and I will be using again and again I'm sure.

As I needed a Halloween card to send to card making buddy in a forum I belong to I thought I would have a try at a black version. This was just so much fun to make - wish I needed some more Halloween cards.


Materials used:

• black card and thick acetate
• clip art by PC Crafter
• sentiment stamp by unknown(but really rubbish one as peeled of wooden block and really awful to stamp with)
• bat die cuts made using Cuttlebug die and embossing folder
• glitzy border peel off by Anita's

My card is for the following challenges:

• The Cuttlebug Spot - Boo - orange, green and black
• Rainbow Lady - Halloween
• Stamping for the Weekend - Have a hauntingly good time.
• Stamp Something - Halloween
• Bubbly Scrumptious - ghosts and ghoulies
• Project Tuesday - stair step card - this is a variation on that theme - a sort of stair step with an acetate roof.

Have a great day everyone and speaking as someone who once screamed the place down after opening the door to someone in a 'Scream' mask do be careful if you hear a knock at the door!!. The little lad who scared me half to death was only 8 and I scared him as much as he scared me. His mum made him come and apologise - oh why am I such a wimp?

Halloween's Coming - Halloween's coming...

Witches will be after you! Big black bats and witches cats - ghosts and goblins too!

Oh we used to have such a good time singing that when my kids were little. Now they are all grown up and in pairs (well for the moment anyway). This card is for my daughter Shelley and her boyfriend, Tony. When I bought the set of Halloween clip art from PC Crafter the other day these two cats stood out as being purrrfect to use for their card.

The purple frame, cats and bat were from the set and cut out and decoupaged. The sentiment and names were created in Serif and then printed and embossed.

The sketch is from the challenge at Die Cut Dreams and I've also used their theme of Halloween and the suggested colours of Black, Purple, Orange and Green.

Halloween is also the theme at A Spoon Full of Sugar, Simon Says STamp , Two Red Bananas and at Fun with Shapes,

At My Time to Craft the theme is Purrrfect Pets and I reckon these two would be pretty cool pets to have around and last but not least at Pile it on the theme (as well as combining at least one other challenge) is 3 dimensional.

Pink Elephant Day...

Whenever I try to do something a bit different and have pictures at the side of my writing it always comes out all wrong so I'm very sorry if this post ends up all over the place. In my defence I tried and if it works well yeah 'clever me'!

This week at The Pink Elephant we are having a colour challenge and the colours are...

Purple, Orange, Black and White.

To me those colours just screamed Halloween, but I didn't feel like making a card so I went out and bought one of those bargain packs of several bars of chocolate and set about making special Halloween wrappers for them.

I did one with a witchy theme for the girls in the family, Laura and Shelley. Laura will go mad and say 'I want it in pink' I just know, but ah well I will just blame Ella at TPE!

The purple frame with it's spider web pattern is from PC Crafter clip art. Love their stuff. The 'Happy Halloween' sentiment is from a stamp set of tiny messages by Making Memories (I think!).

The witch, who is actually called Mrs Pepperpot (isn't she gorgeous?) is a free digi stamp from Two Scoops Rice Designs. I coloured her with Promarkers to match the clip art and my papers.

The other two chocolate bars are for the girl's boyfriends, James and Tony. On their wrappers a spooky bat makes an appearance from the clipart collection. The 'Boo' sentiment is a stamp from the same set as the 'Happy Halloween'.

All this chocolate around and I haven't had a single piece. My halo is shining brightly!!! Three stone lighter now and still shrinking - yeah!!! Thank you Slimming World!

Hope to see everyone joining in this week at The Pink Elephant. It doesn't have to be a Halloween card and it doesn't have to be just for our challenge. I know I certainly like to combine challenges and enter a few at the same time (see below). I'm sure everyone will come up with some stunning creations with this colour palette and I can't wait to see them.

Halloween seems to be a very popular challenge this week so my little Halloween treats are also for the challenges at...

Fun with Shapes and More - Halloween

Two Red Bananas - Halloween

At Everybody's Art the DT want us to make little gifts and finally at Pile it On the challenge is to go three dimensional.

Happy Nurse's Day...

I didn't believe Laura last year when she said that it was nurse's day and I got into no end of trouble for not sending her a card. This year I was actually quite organised and bought a stamp set a couple of weeks ago. I didn't actually make the card until yesterday, but at least having a stamp ahead of time gave me a good start.

I used this week's sensational octagonal themed sketch at Stamp with fun as a basis for my card. I had to change the sketch a little as the gems would not have stood out on the spotted card, but I did try quite hard to stick as closely as I could to the sketch. One of the diagonal pieces is embossed and the other is jet black glitter card which is not showing its true beauty in the photo.

The nurse stamp and the little first aid bag are from a fun set by Woodware - love this set there is a doctor too and some cute little sentiments.

My other card today is another for Laura - this time it's one for my mum to give her. The image is from a clip art set by PC Crafter and of course there is lots of pink card and bling.

Hope you like my cards and for all those nurses out there working those killing double shifts thank you for all you do and I hope even if you are working you have a lovely day.

I have one more card to do - I happened to mention on my hospital visit to my Auntie today that Nurse's day was coming up and she asked me to make a card for her to give the nurses on her ward.

Congratulations...

My daughter asked for a card to give to her friend who has just qualified as a nurse and got her first job. Luckily I had an email from PC Crafter with a link to one of their new clipart sets with this lovely nurse image. I couldn't resist buying the set and using the image to make this card. I hope Laura approves - it hasn't got as much pink as she normally likes so I may have to go back to the drawing board!!

Naturally it had to cover some challenges too:

• 'Everyone emboss' at the Creative Card Crew
• 'Open theme' at Saturday Surprise - my favourite thing being embossing using the Cuttlebug folders.

Materials used:

• Clipart from PC Crafter


• Green and white card and silver mirri card from stash.


• Cuttlebuy 'Congratulations' folder


• green ribbon and gems from stash

Update - card passed stringent quality control!!!

Snow...

This card is for the challenge at http://abc-challenge.blogspot.com/ , where the theme is snow. It's also for my daughter, Shelley, who absolutely loves the stuff. I think I should say at this point that she is 20, but that didn't stop her jumping up and down yesterday and ringing all her friends to tell them that there were huge snowflakes falling.

I rather like snow myself as long as you don't have to get to work or travel anywhere it's pretty cute as is Messy Rabbit. I absolute love the Messy Rabbits stamps by Joanna Sheen. This character is just so lovable and is taking the country by storm. I've heard rumours that he is going to be even bigger in 2009 so watch this space or you might be better taking a look at him at http://www.joannasheen.co.uk/.



Materials used:

• white card
• blue vellum for overlay
• silver mirri card
• fiskar's snowflake border punch
• snowflake die
• gem brads from stash
• Messy Rabbit in big baggy jumper stamp
• clip art by PC Crafter
• silver sentiment and border peel offs
• white organza ribbon
• silver letter peel offs to create name
• Adirondack ink and watercolour pencil crayons for colouring
  

Day 7 of free stamps... Rabbit day...

As promised here is a card made with my free stamp. Sally at http://bootifulstampz.blogspot.com/ is still running this free stamp give away. All you need to do is post a message on her blog and a link on your own blog to be in with a chance. Good luck.

Think it must be rabbit week at my house because here's another card made with Joanna Sheen's Messy rabbit and that fabulous clip art I bought recently. I'm having so much fun using the clip art and the stamps together.

Materials used on first card:

• white base card
• rabbit from Bootiful Stampz
• Fiskar's Shapeboss template
• pink pearlescent paper
• watercolour shimmer paints
• pink gems from stash

Materials used on second card:

• blue base card
• silver mirri paper for matting and layering
• PC Crafter clipart
• Joanna Sheen Messy Rabbit stamp
• Derwent Inktense pencil crayons
• silver sentiment and corner peel offs
• white organza satin edged ribbon
• silver icycle charm and silver links
  
  

Blog inspiration...

This week the arty girlz at http://artygirlzchallengeblog.blogspot.com/ want everyone to look at other crafter's blogs and take inspiration from them to create their own work.

This was an ideal challenge for me as I was already in the middle of some cards that I originally got the idea from another crafter. Eversince first using Magnoli Tilda stamps I have loved to use them with a garden/countryside background. I was using the sky and grass background paper from the DCWV Spring pad but sadly three sheets do not last for ever.

Then following a link from my friend Heather's blog to Elaine at http://elainesden.blogspot.com/2008/10/step-card.html I saw the most fantastic card and details of where to get the gorgeous bits and bobs of clip art to create the background scene.

The clipart is from http://www.pccrafter.com/. It took awhile to find just what I wanted but eventually I found a collection of winter clip art (and quite a few more things that are in my wish list) to use with both Tilda and Messy Rabbit.

Thank you so much for the link Elaine and the help you gave me about using the site. You're a star.

Materials used:

• Joanna Sheen Messy Rabbit stamp set
• Clip art
• turquiose and yellow card
• silver mirri card to lay inside mirror frame
• silver sentiment peel offs
• Wizard die tag
• Sakura clear stardust pen

More messy rabbits coming soon...

Messy Rabbit Quick Card...

Doing quick cards is not easy for me. I'm a great one for spending ages choosing the right shade of paper etc and generally messing about trying things out so the challenge at http://abc-challenge.blogspot.com/ to make a card in 20 minutes was quite a task. At one stage I did think that the alternative 'Q' choice of quilling might have been a better bet!!!

However, I tried and I did keep to the 20 minutes - honest - well almost - I did get carried away when choosing the brad because I remembered that I had some cute bow things that you can use with a brad. I reckon the 10 minutes or so trying to find the safe place they were stashed away in should not count!!!

I made the card using the scarf frame from the fabulous clip art I bought recently and my Messy Rabbit stamp that hopped over from Joanna Sheen's website yesterday. I'm not completely happy with the card, but it is the first time I've coloured a messy rabbit image and the bright colours in the scarf made it quite hard to get the combination right on the rabbit.

Materials used:

• turquiose base card
• yellow card
• satin photo paper
• Joanna Sheen Messy Rabbit stamp
• PC Crafter Clipart
• wizard tag die cut
• brad and bow from stash
• silver sentiment peel off

Let it snow sketch...

This is really uncanny! I made this card yesterday afternoon and then later in the day went to check out the new challenge at http://papertakeweekly.blogspot.com/ and found that is was a sketch almost identical to the card I had just completed. I know I'm trying to keep up with challenges but doing them before they have been set is going a bit far.

I hope the members at Papertakeweekly will accept the card as an entry cause it just seems such a 'meant to be' kind of thing.

The card came to be due to another blogging friend, Elaine, who introduced me to the clipart at

http://www.pccrafter.com/. I was so impressed with the way she had used it with a Tilda stamp that I just had to go and investigate. I have been wanting some backgrounds to work with for awhile and the ones available at this site are just wow. I bought the snow scene to use with Joanna Sheen's Messy Rabbit stamps but couldn't wait for my rabbit to arrive before I started to play.

All the parts of the card are made using the clipart - I designed the layout on my computer and then printed off extra sections to be decoupaged.

As my card has a snowy theme it is also perfect for the challenge at http://craftawayasunday.wordpress.com/ where the challenge is 'Let it snow' and the challenge at http://www.mytimetocraftchallenge.blogspot.com/ where the challenge this week is 'Snowmen'. Wow a triple whammy!!!

Hope my rabbit arrives today so that I can do some stamping combined with the clipart.

Materials used:

• PC Crafter clipart in conjunction with Serif Home Office programme
• blue pearlescent base card
• silver card for matting and layering
• heavy duty photo paper - satin finish
• gemstones from stash
• computer generated wording