A birthday card with an elephant on it...

A lovely friend of mine will be 60 next week and so, of course, I HAD to make her a card. 

Although I met my friend at the Cat Rescue where we both volunteer, I know that she has a real soft spot for elephants, so decided to ink up this fun Katzelkraft stamp and pair it with a sentiment from MFT. I think the crown is also from Katzelkraft. 

Edited to add...

I'm linking this card to Darnell's NBUS Challenge #60

and Seize the Birthday #278, where I'm going with the Anything Goes option.

It's a lovely sunny day here in the UK, so I think I'll go for a walk after lunch and enjoy some Springs rays. 

#Cards for Ukraine

 

The lovely folk at Color Hues are playing with the colours of the Ukrainian flag. Nancy has pulled-together her Colour Hues and Seize the Birthday teams for this very special and heartfelt challenge.

For my card I used a favourite Card Chain Challenge sketch and reworked the colour palette from my previous card by using a Teresa Collins pad called Every Day Moments. I don't think this pad is available any longer, which is a pity as the colours and papers are lovely.

I really cannot put into words how I feel about what is happening in Ukraine. I searched through my sentiment stamps and found a set from Pinkfresh called You Can Change the World. The sentiments are amazing and I could have chosen about three different messages from this set. How I wish that ordinary people could change the world; perhaps it would be a happier, better and safer place.

I'm sending love to everyone caught up in and affected by the current conflict. Please keep hope in your hearts.

Everyone should have a friend like Gail...

Everyone should have a friend like Gail aka Ionabunny of Crafty Nomad fame!

So, I was wanting to make a birthday card, but Mr Mojo had packed up and left town. A little FB chat with my mate Gail and hey presto, she's found me a sketch to get the ball rolling, and a card is made within the hour. Thanks so much, Gail, you're one in a million!

I mangled this sketch:

And took my colour inspiration from Seize the Birthday where the Toppings are Dichromatic 

and Colour Hues who're playing with Navy and Pink for Challenge #35. The DT cards are fabulous on all three sites  - I really wish I could make cards like those guys do!

The stencil and the flower stamps are from MFT, and I accidently mixed my own blend of Distress Ink when I used a Festive Berries covered sponge in the Picked Raspberry ink. I liked the combo, so grabbed a craft sheet and mixed-up a little more! 

Happy crafting, everyone!

Seize the Beverage!

 Hi there, happy Monday to you all!

My Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers teamie, Jules, has just chosen her first 'Toppings' theme over at her new DT gig with Seize the Birthday!  She's made me sooooooooo proud by picking 'Beverages' as her topping of choice. Naturally, I just had to play along.

I still had this VLVS gal on my desk after making this card, so I inked her up and gave her a beer and sentiment from the Brings on the Beers set by Visible Image. It was easy to snuggle that bottle into her hand by cutting and colouring a second arm!

The background is another of my Gel prints. This time it was made with a picture from Vogue Magazine. I think it was the third pull and I love how it left plenty of space for the wording and the image.

The DT have created some fabulous cards for this fun challenge, so why not head on over and join the fun!

Seize the Birthday Challenge #225 - Use a Stencil

 

I'm delighted to have made time to play along at Seize the Birthday! I always love playing in this challenge as the DT cards are always so inspirational and the Toppings are such fun.

For this challenge the team want to see a stencil... I love stencilling, so this one was right up my street!

I've had these two kitties sitting on my desk for quite a while now so I thought it was time to make them a card! Aren't they cute? They are from MFT Mini Meows set. The stencilled background was made with Distress Inks and a gorgeous stencil from Funky Fossil. This stencil is called Organic Circles and is one of my favourites from their range. It's been great watching Sarah's shop go from strength to strength and her stamps and stencils just get better and better!

It turns out that the lovely peeps over at Happy Little Stampers are also running a stencil challenge, so I'll link to them as well. There's some fabulous DT cards on their site to drool over!

Hope you have a fun day. It's wet and windy here in the UK, so perfect weather for crafting!

Birthday Girl, Wish Big!

 Hi there, it's another cool but sunny day here in the UK and my craftroom is bathed in sunshine!

I'm delighted to be playing along with two of my favourite challenges today.

Seize the Birthday is offering a Topping of Spring Flowers and Lost Coast would like to see a prominent sentiment on your card. I'm hoping this card fits the bill for both challenges.  

I've coloured and fussy cut Picket Fence Studios Kendyll and paired her with a gorgeous sentiment from Colarado Crafts Lovely Legs - Birthday. The stencilling in the background was created with a Newton's Nook stencil. 

I could spend all day making cards like this as I love a sweet and simple design... and a bit of kraft card.

Stay safe, and have a lovely weekend!

Woofing You a Happy Birthday!

 Hi, Happy Monday and Happy International Women's Day to you all!

Today, I got to play in one of my favourite challenges: Seize the Birthday.

It's my friend's birthday next week and as she's a dog lover I thought I'd put a pup on her card!

Three smooched shades of gorgeous green Distress Inks, with one of them used to stamp the MFT numbers, plus a sentiment and sweet pup from MFT Woof Pack and it was job done. I'm so into kraft card right now - had you guessed?

Take care, everyone.

Nothing neutral...

Happy Sunday! I hope that everyone is doing ok today.

The STB gang have a fun challenge on offer and it's one that tested me a little as they want to see non-neutral card bases on our cards!

I broke out Edna wants a martini from Stamping Bella and paired her with a bling-tastic background created with a martini glass from Newton's Nook Cocktail Mixer set. I added red glitter  card and plenty of Wink of Stella too.

This card proved a real challenge to photograph!

The DT cards are gorgeous and the gallery is filling up nicely for this challenge, so why not head on over and join the fun!

Seize the Birthday - Watercolouring!

It's my final appearance as Surprise Party Guest at Seize the Birthday - boo hoo!

I want to thank Nancy and the guys for inviting me as I've had a blast and loved every minute.

The challenge for the next two weeks is 'Watercolouring'. To be honest, I haven't yet produced a water coloured card that I like. 😢 It's a technique I love but need to practise, so I decided to 'cheat' and go for a smoochy, watercolour background for my little Kraftin' Kimmie bookworm. After stamping the sentiment I ran the background through the Cuttlebug.

I very much hope you'll play along with this challenge and leave lot's of love for the DT crew when you visit.

Seize the Birthday - All About Summer!

I'm thrilled have reached my third outing as Surprise Party Guest at Seize the Birthday! We've had heavy rain here in the UK for the second day running, so a nice sunny, summery card is just what we need!

The idea for this popped into my head as I was falling asleep and thankfully I remembered it well enough to make it the next day. As you can see, I grabbed the toppings for this challenge with both hands!

The stamps are from Jane's Doodles and the 'smile' die is from Simon Says Stamp. This was very quick and easy card to make and I really enjoyed positioning the happy crab infront of the other items.

I hope you come along and play over at Seize the Birthday for some Summer fun!

Seize the Birthday - Totally Tropical

I'm delighted to be the Surprise Party Guest again over at Seize the Birthday. The theme for this challenge is a fun one: Totally Tropical.

It took me a little while to come up with an idea that didn't involve cocktails, but eventually I decided to break out some Stampin' Up! goodies and the card progressed quite quickly after that.

I really enjoyed colouring this little Toucan from the Bird Banter set. The sentiment also comes from this set and the gorgeous Stampin' Up! paper makes the perfect tropical background.

You can join the challenge here.

Stay safe, everyone.

Seize the Birthday - Surprise Birthday Guest!

Hi Peeps, I hope that everyone is doing ok and staying safe.

Do you like my funky new badge? I certainly do, and was totally amazed when Nancy got in touch to ask me to be the Surprise Party Guest over at Seize the Birthday. Thanks so much, I'm thrilled to be guesting with you guys!

The theme is a fun one, and I decided to go with a colour that I'm growing to love: yellow.

I really do love this image from Picket Fence and could use her over and over again. The background is my favourite stencil (I've lost the packaging) and the circular greeting is from a Simon Says Stamp set which I've had for ages but never used.

I hope you'll come and play along in this lovely challenge.

Stay safe!

Seize the Heroes!

Hi everyone, I hope that you are doing ok and managing to keep busy and healthy during Lockdown. I'm crafting up a storm when I'm not at work as I find it hugely helpful with keeping a positive mindset.

I was delighted to see that they lovely folk at Seize the Birthday have temporarily put aside birthday challenges and given us the opportunity to create cards to say thank you to some of the ordinary people who are stepping up and going above and beyond during these difficult times. What a sweet thing to do.

Here in the UK we are totally smitten with a ninety-nine year old former soldier who vowed to walk 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday to raise money for the NHS.

This is Captain Tom, and he's raised an amazing £28 million by slowly and patiently lapping his garden day after day until he reached 100 laps. It's his birthday on April 30th and thousands of us have decided to send him a card!

Here's the card I've made for him.

As Captain Tom is a former soldier, I wanted a slightly military look to his card - possibly like a cap badge or similar. After a little Googling I found his regimental colours and went with them as the palette for my card. As the card was mainly a die-cut creation it was very quick and easy to make.

There's still time to play along in this challenge. If you haven't any healthcare worker images, and would like to pay tribute to their courage and hard work you can find free MFT Birdie Brown digital images of doctors and nurses here.

Keep safe!

Seizing the Birthday with just hours to spare!

Hi there, I hope you're all keeping well during these difficult times.

I've already played along in Challenge #187 at Seize the Birthday, but decided to do so again because they have a lovely theme for the toppings: Spring Fling!

I love this set from Clearly Besotted. Sadly, it's discontinued so I was delighted to find it offered for sale a while back by a blogging buddy, however Clearly Besotted do have a similar set which you can find here. The blossom is so pretty that I thought rather than colour it I'd leave it plain. I stencilled the background in Spun Sugar and Tattered Rose Distress Inks and added two sweet sentiments from a Jane's Doodles set called Doodle Butterflies. Finishing the card just required some sequins and a little layering in kraft.

The Seize the Birthday gang also have another challenge running until April 28th;

Isn't that great? What a lovely way to thank the ordinary people who are going above and beyond rightnow to look after us and keep us safe.

Stay safe everyone, and keep crafting!

They tell me it's Wednesday...

Hi everyone, I'm just dropping by to share a birthday card made with stencils and a fun image from VLVS that I'll be sending to a lovely work friend. She's just a bit nutty (like me) so I think she'll enjoy it.

I'm not sure why this gal is practising yoga in her posh clothes - perhaps lockdown is proving a little stressful.

I'm Seizing the birthday with this card and deliberately went with Spring colours so I could grab the toppings too.  The current Always Fun Challenge is "CAS (clean and simple)", so I'm delighted to join the fun there too! 

Keep crafting, and keep safe!

Seize the Birthday!

Wow, two blog posts in one day!

Over the weekend I spotted this little piece of fabulousness made by the awesomely talented Galina for Waffle Flower.  I loved the technique of switching the inlaid pieces to create a fun look, and then this idea jumped into my head!

As always, you learn as you go along and I'd do a few things differently if I made another version of this card. I created a background with Distress Inks, sprayed with water and then sprayed with water and splashed around a little gold paint. I moved around the numbers (Number It! from Mama Elephant) and added a sweet little sentiment bar (Labelled Messages also from Mama Elephant) before sticking everything in place. Three teeny, tiny gems in pink, green and amber finished the card.

I'd been wanting to play along at Seize the Birthday, but Mrs. Molly Mojo wasn't playing ball until this idea had me rushing for my inks and stamps. The sentiment is the focal on my card... Honest!

Happy crafting, everyone.

Seize the Birthday Butterflies!

I needed a quick and simple birthday card, so decided to play along with one of my favourite challenges for a little inspiration.

I'm Seizing the Toppings by playing with this gorgeous set from Jane's Doodles - we could be talking obsession here people!

I attempted an ombre look to my card, but am not that pleased with the effect. It actually looks much better IRL. I think my inking skills AND my photography skills need a little attention!

I'm going to sit back and have a look through the Seize the Birthday gallery now before getting on with a few jobs. Hope your Monday is going well!

Meddling with Mandalas...

Hi there, I hope that today finds you happy and healthy.

Today, I'm meddling with mandalas and trying to create some cards featuring these circular lovelies.

Here's the first one I'm able to share.

This is a small card which uses a Gelli print background created with Adirondack Paints and a gorgeous TCW mandala stencil (Mini Prismascope). The image is Kiki Girl from Picket Fence and the sentiment is from Ink Road. The random black stamping around the edges is from an old, old stamp that is missing the company name.

I really enjoyed creating this card and had my first real successes with my Gelli plate. More practice needed, but it's a start! This really doesn't look like a birthday card owing to the sentiment, but it's for the birthday of a friend who has been going through some tough times.

I'm linking to one of my fav challenges:

Seize the Birthday - Challenge #171 where the Topping is Flowers

And for the first time to this lovely, arty challenge:

If you've never visited Lost Coast Designs blog I'd urge you to do so as the stamps are brilliant and the DT inspiration is just awesome. I'm delighted to play along in their Anything Goes Challenge #81.

I plan to meddle with mandalas during this week and I'll share my other cards when they're made, and explain the reason behind this little project.

Happy crafting everyone!