I finally made a tealight box card...

I first saw one of these on Sarah's blog- Rainmac's Place- and I thought it was just beautiful. She included a link to the tutorial she had followed so I immediately bookmarked it and I have finally made my first one.

As you can see, it is a square card with a spine and a box inside that holds 4 tealights.

I started off by trying the instructions out on some scrap card and I was glad I did because I only had a Crafter's Companion Top Score board which is great for all sorts of standard card sizes but I was having to measure, mark and line up on one of the scoring lines for each fold and the box just didn't turn out crisp enough and it was too large so the candles moved about. I decided to invest in a board with measurements on as I would like to have a go at more of this sort of thing. I have now got a Hougie Board which is 12 by 12 and double sided, with half centimeter apart lines on one side and half inch apart lines on the other. It was great and as it has such fine lines I was able to make the box fit the candles perfectly.

For the front I used a sweet little mouse by Meljen's coloured with promarkers and added the dot and dash border with a gel pen to frame it and to link with the dots and squiggles used on the image. I am so in love with these digi papers by Just so Scrappy called 'Think Pink' at the moment.

 I used my Tattered Florals die by Tim Holtz for Sizzix to cut out the smallest flower twice. One from Core'dinations and one from the check DP. I scrunched each petal up a bit with my nails and lightly sanded the Core'dinations before putting it together with a card candy center and die cut leaves. I recently tried to bring some order to my ribbon by sorting it into tubs of the same colours so it was easy to find the lovely organza ribbon. Here are a couple more photos of the inside.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

• Little Red Wagon- animals
• Paper Cutz- spring
• Allsorts- make your own flowers
• One Stop Crafts- spring flowers
• Crafty Emma's- flowers and flutterbys

Cards for Men challenge 5- Water...

I can't believe we're up to challenge 5 this year- where's the time going?! This time we have a 'Water' theme at Cards for Men and the challenge runs until 13th March so why not pop over and join in?

I was inspired by the image from Hope Jacare to go all curvacious with my card! Claire's images always strike me as 'curly, swirly' and are a joy for those of us who love colouring in. I had this wonderful digi paper set in a download from Mommy Me Time Scrapper called To The Sea and added the sentiment to the tag in Photoshop.
This card gave me a chance to have a first play with my new card cutting die from Go Kreate, available exclusively from Click on Crafts. It is designed to cut through a folded card to give you a shaped card but I had a little trouble at first- I think I cut my bases from quite sturdy card (which in the end the die had no problem cutting) but my Big Shot felt tight with all tabs and too loose with tab 2 off so I used an old slim calendar to act as a shim. It was perfect because I could adjust how many pages to put through until it felt just right. I used it on top of tab 1 on the multipurpose platform and under the cutting plate sandwich. As this is an easel card the brown front was one layer so this went through fine with all tabs then just needed a little hand trimming where the fold would be. I drew around the inside of the card die to shape my papers perfectly then cut them out by hand. The shape matched nicely with nesties Labels 8 which I used for the image.
The swirl is cut from an oddment of glitter card that I rescued from a card my son got ages ago. It matched so well- now I have justification for all the bits I keep! The easel is supported on card candy. I kept the embelishment simple because of all the curvy shapes- the only straight line on this card is the fold at the back of the easel!

We are sponsored by Claire from Hope Jacare and she is offering 3 digi images to our lucky winner. The rest of the DT have made fabulous cards with her images too, so do pop over to Cards for Men to see their work and for the rest of the challenge details.

I would also like to enter this card in the following challenges:

• Shannon's Sentiments- fussy cutting
• Card Creations and More- sparkle
• Stamp, Scrap and Doodle- easel card
• The Stampman- curls and swirls
• Stampin' for the Weekend- monochrome
• Do you stack up? - anything goes

A girly karate card...

I was making some male karate cards for a friend a few weeks ago and I stamped a few extra images from this cute Elzybell stamp (now closed down). As I was colouring them I thought they could work just as well for a girl as a boy and there are loads of girls doing karate so here it is! I followed the sketch at Sketch Saturday but simplified it slightly. Spoon Full of Sugar have 'Birthday wishes' as their challenge. I Love Promarkers have 'stitching- real or faux' - I started off with just the stitching around the image but then added it to the layers because I think it helps to unify them and adds some more black. Charisma have 'black, white and one other' and Totally Gorjuss have 'black plus one'.

Dotty with a cupcake...

Dotty comes from a series of digis at Bugaboo and has been coloured with Promarkers. The papers are from a digi scrapping kit called Hot Cocoa by Growing Pains Scrapped. The pearls were from a lovely little surprise in my birthday card from my Cards for Men DT buddy Sarah- thanks hun, they are fab! I even got out some decorative scissors for the edge of the brown mat and a corner punch that I have had for ages for the image.

I would like to enter this card for the following challenges:

• Stamptacular Sunday- lovin' from the oven (food)
• Truly Scrumptious- Swirls and pearls
• Do you stack up?- dots
• Colour Create- Chocolate, strawberries and cream (more pinky than red but I hope it still counts!)

Cards for Men challenge 4- a recipe...

Well our Valentines and Love challenge was very popular and it was great to see all your entries. This time at Cards for Men we have a recipe for you- 1 image, 2 design papers, 3 embellishments (could be 3 different or 3 of one thing) and, as usual, it must be for a man or boy.

I used this cute Deacon image by Bugaboo for my card, but I used Photoshop to remove a little heart from the right of the boy's head when I was resizing it as I wanted the card to have more general appeal. My 2 DP are from a blog train download called French Tulips and, as you can see, I have used quite a busy check so I have teamed it with a simple tone on tone dot. I've added a tabbed sentiment and 2 die cut corners in the same card as my mats. My 3 embellishments are the card candy which seems to be cropping up on most of my cards at the moment!

We are sponsored by One Stop Card Crafts for this challenge. They stock a wide range of card making goodies- so do pop over and take a look at what they have. For more info on the challenge, the prize from One Stop Card Crafts and of course more wonderful inspiration from the rest of the DT see Cards for Men. You have plenty of time to take part because the challenge runs until 27th February.

I would also like to enter this card for:

• Simply Create- 'it's bright in here'
• Delightful Challenges- punches/ die cuts
• Little Claire's- anything goes

Baby girl card...

A few weeks ago I was making a baby boy card so I made the girl sentiment too and printed it at the same time, now I have finally got around to making it up. The lovely doily mat is a Nellies die which my son got me for my birthday after spotting me looking at it on Ebay! The papers are all from my stash and the die cut stars and 'baby' are Sizzlett dies.

I would like to enter this card for the following challenges:

• Totally Papercrafts- clean and simple
• Crafty Emma's- cute and cuddly
• Challenge up your life- monochrome

Some sad news...

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to our beautiful but very old dog, Teg. He was fourteen and a half and had had very few health problems until the end but we had noticed he wasn't quite himself, then last week he seemed worse so we girded our loins for a trip to the vets- Teg liked everyone except vets, who he held a particular dislike for! Blood tests showed that his kidneys had stopped working and at his age treatment would have been awful for him and would not have been a cure so we had to make the awful decision that it was his time.
We got him when he was two from Dog Helpline rescue in North Wales where my parents live. He was mainly collie and I'm not sure what else he was crossed with, but he was a one off and we fell in love with him. He has been amazing and we all love him to bits. The house does not feel right without him and so many things remind us of him. We know we did the right thing and that he had a lovely life but it does not make missing him any easier right now.