Happy Birthday ...

 

Another card for Laura's birthday tomorrow.  This is the one I've made for Grandma to give her.  Again Sweet Pea Stamps and this image actually has an amazing sentiment included with it which I intended to put on the front of the card, but there just wasn't enough space so it's had to go on the inner.  It reads...

' May the wings of a butterfly kiss the sun.

 And find your shoulders to light on.

 To bring you luck, happiness and riches .

 Today, tomorrow and beyond.'

Note yet more cast off jewelry being used.  When Laura first showed me her butterfly necklace a year or so ago I must admit my eyes lit up at the sight of the 20 or so butterflies dangling down from it.  She knows me so well and said at the time 'You're not having it yet!'  I laughed and said it looked quite fragile and would get tangled in her hair.  Naturally this comment was met with a huge scowl and I fell quite low in the 'yummy mummy' league for a while.  Anyway a year later and it finally bit the dust and was relegated to the craft collection - yeah - how cool are these butterflies? 

I must admit that Laura added the chain from the necklace to a scrapbook page she was working on last week so that makes me feel a little less guilty.

Additional materials:

• Promarkers of course and a touch of chalk
• Marianne circular frame die and nestie circle
• Beautiful shimmery butterfly paper by Sei
• Blue ribbon - oh the joy of ribbon sorted on to cards (see this post)
• Happy Birthday sentiment
• Gems and Spray and Sparkle (silver) to add oomph
• Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder

Challenges:

• In a Sweet Pea Dream - Anything Goes (hope it's okay to enter again)
• Sweet Pea Stampers - Recycling - the butterfly - again second entry hope that is okay.
• Passion for Promarkers - Fit for a princess (think it fits as all granddaughters are Princesses in their Grandma's eyes)
• Try it on Tuesday - Something old (the butterfly) - something new (the stamp)
• Sketch and Stamp - original sketch used was from there, but I must come clean and say I lost a couple of the elements from it.  Sorry!

Well cards done and dusted now on to the gift bags.  Have a great day everyone.

Ann xxx

Laura's Birthday...

Wow, it's not until Wednesday and already I've finished her card!  This has got to be a record as normally I have to get up at the crack of dawn on the day to finish (or even sometimes start) the card.  Not this time and I was even organised enough to buy this oh so cute stamp from Sweet Pea Stamps about a month ago knowing it would fit the bill for her birthday perfectly.

The papers I've used are from a collection I bought at a car boot sale recently so I really don't know the company, but they are scrummy.  The sentiment stamp was part of the same set by Sweet Pea stamps.  I really love their stamps and the range is just growing and growing all the time.

Additional Materials:

• Flower and leaf embossing and cutting punches
• Martha Stewart lace dollie border punch
• Promarkers (naturally)
• pink ribbon (yeah - not white or cream or black - due to new ribbon storage I a can actually find matching colours -yeah)
• Cricut to cut ovals large enough for the stamp 
• glitter, gems and recycled solitary ear ring courtesy of Laura (perhaps Mummy should not be happy when daughters loose ear rings, but sometimes I just can't help feeling a little bit pleased.  Watch out for the broken butterfly necklace coming soon).
• Swiss Dots embossing folder

Challenges:

• Sweet Stop Challenge - provided the fantastic sketch for the card.
• Practical Scrappers - Birthday Cards
• Pollycraft - Anything Goes
• Sir Stampalot - Magical Worlds
• In a Sweet Pea Dream - Anything Goes
• Sweet Pea Stamps Challenge - recycling -  a solitary ear ring see photo below...

and just to prove it's on the card...

I really must invest in some jewelry pliers as my finger is going to be sore all week now after bending the metal flat at the back of the flower.

Two posts in one day.  Aren't holidays just brilliant?

Hope everyone is really enjoying this lovely sunny bank holiday as much as I am.

Ann xxx

Another Sweet Pea...

I had to keep this card secret until now as it was made as a swap for a forum friend, who has now received the card safely.  The theme for the swap was embossing and I really wanted to create a card that had many different types of embossing on it. 

My plan was to build the image up in several stages until I had a complete and hopefully dramatic end result.  I began by stamping and colouring the image using Promarkers on white card.  Then I stamped  and embossed the image using Ultra fine black embossing powder on to black card.  I painted the dress using pearlescent mica powder before cutting out and spraying with that fantastic Crafter's Companion Silver Sparkle spray.

At this point I cut out both the full image of the lady and the dress and assembled them together.  I tried a few backgrounds, but eventually decided that a section of the DCWV paper that I had already decided to use on the card worked well as a background too.  I like the swirls behind her - almost like fairy dust billowing out.

To add to the embossing theme I used the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder to create a ribbon across the card and the Swirls folder to emboss and acetate circle which I hope adds interest.  The flowers were made using a set of flower punches that both punch and emboss.  

I think my forum friend was well pleased with her card, which was also intended for the following challenges...

• Sketch and Stash - the sketch and new stash (Sweet Pea stamp and spray)
• Sweet Pea Customer Challenge Week - Free for all

Well I'm off to York for the day now.  Doing some shopping and yes if you're reading this Max yes I'm going with Laura and we will be hitting Evil Eye and Bella Italia.  I'm calling at a shop where I have a little something on order too - you will be amazed! 

Have a great day everyone.

Ann xxx

Such a fun day...

I had such a wonderful day yesterday experimenting and playing inbetween watching Sheena Douglas on Create and Craft.  I even had a go at that Faux Paper Sculpting she demoed, but that's still not dry.  I also have a feeling that mine may not be as successful as hers, but you never know so watch this space.

The best part of my crafting day was playing with one of my new Sweet Pea stamps.  I must admit I have been a bit nervous about using them, because I thought they might prove very difficult to colour, but I had a whale of a time with this one.  I used Promarkers for the main part and chalks for the background.  Then (mainly cause I've just bought it and wanting to try it out) I sprayed the whole image with Crafter's Companion Silver sparkle.  Oh my goodness this is lovely stuff!  I am trying very hard not to spray everything and anything that stands still for too long!

The flowers, stamens and leaves are all punched and arranged around the apperture.  It's quite hard to tell in a photo whether the image is stamped on an oval shape or an oval apperture has been cut out of patterned and plain card and then mounted on top.  Sorry for rambling here, but I really want to stress that this is an apperture and to make it I had to figure out how to use the Centre point button on my Cricut machine.  So proud of myself on figuring that out and now I have there will be no stopping me!

My patterned paper is by my favourite company DCWV and I think in my excitement about the apperture I may have used it upside down, but hey who is looking that closely?

My card was made with the following challenges in mind...

• Sweet Pea Stampers - fabulous sketch
• Sir Stampalot Monthly Challenge - Punches (flowers are punched embossed with the floral punches, stamen and leaves also punched)
• Craftalicious Challenge - New (my stamp and glitter spray)
• Stamp Something - Happy Something
• Simon Says Stamp - Shiver me timbers (My pirate name is Stinky Nut Gorilla - sheesh not good !)

Have a great day everyone - I may if feeling brave later show my toilet paper work.  Yikes, it may be nearly dry, but what on earth am I going to create with it?

Ann xxx

Shelley's Birthday...

Yesterday was my daughter Shelley's birthday and when did I make her cards - yep you guessed it - yesterday morning!  I've just got to get myself more organised.  I actually bought myself a new stamp set to create something special for her, but because I was in such a rush I had to keep the card fairly simple.

The beautiful fairy is from a stamp set by Sweet Pea Stamps.  I coloured her using Promarkers and then using the Nellie Snellen circle die created a frame and acetate overlay.  The frame is attached over the image with foam pads.  I did consider putting glitter in as in a shaker card, but decided against as I didn't want to hide the image in any way.

The heart corners were punched using my new Woodware punch (another Mother's Day present - my daughters are well trained) and the patterned paper was part of a fantastic blog candy prize sent to me by Vicki at Blue Jelly Too. I seem to be having a really lucky time at the moment - I must buy a lottery ticket today!

Shelley loved her card and the one I made for Gran to send her - also made in the mad panic yesterday morning. 

My card is also for the challenges at...

• Rainbow Lady - Acetate overlay (without the Christmas option)
• Die Cut Dreams - Two punches - (heart corner and small tag are both punched)
• Magical Crafts - Things with Wings