Happy Ever After

 

Hello

 

Hope your week has gone well

I'm late today, so getting straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge

Fairy Tale Day

Celebrate National Tell A Fairy Tale Day with us today! Rizwana would like you to create a card inspired by a Fairy Tale or fairytale character.

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

Mine ended up as a card with that age-old Fairytale ending as its theme - though when I starred it was going to be based on Rumpelstiltskin and have more gold thread.  

I think what I loved about the Rumpelstiltskin story was the picture of him stamping his foot so hard that it went through the floorboards and got stuck.  

Could that be because I've always been a bit of a 'stamps foot in frustration' kind of person myself? hmmm. maybe!

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Large white square card blank, plus more matching card for die-cutting the cascading hearts and the background square. Gold card for the scalloped square, and various glitter, shiny and pearl gold card scraps for the heart details

I adhered 2 white heart cascades together, cutting some away to get the shape I wanted I cut some parts of the cascade in the gold cards, along with some of the fill in hearts. I used these to add gold 'frames' over some of the white areas, and fill in white 'frames' with the different types of gold card

The sentiment pieces were created on the pc and printed out, then a hew bits of gold thread were added, along with a couple of red gems 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Lip-synching

 

   Hello, 

I hope your week has gone well, and you have something to look forward to at the weekend.

I'm getting straight to Joanne's Daring Cardmakers challenge for this week.  A bit of a continuation from last week's smoochy Valentine's Day theme

Kiss Kiss!
Ever heard that the Friday after Shrove Tuesday is Kissing Friday?
Unthinkable nowadays, but until the mid-20th century this strange UK custom allowed a schoolboy to kiss a girl without fear of a slap or a telling off! It was especially popular in the Victorian and Edwardian era.
As today is Kissing Friday I challenge you to make a card with a kiss this week - it could be an image of characters kissing, some luscious lips or use a kissing technique with your rubber stamps.

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

I was a bit stumped for quite a while with this one.  I had no dies that could be used, and no real, or digital papers which would work either. In the end I turned to an image search with that clever Ms Google and found this smiling mouth image.

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Square white card blank, plus more card in white, red and  black

I resized and printed the mouth image, then covered the lips with Glossy Accents.

The sentiment was printed directly onto the card and the large letters cut from red and black card using a Spellbinders die set;1 layer in red, 2 in black. Once the letters were ready they were adhered to the top of the card. 

Once the image was dry I layered it onto red and black card rectangles and adhered the whole thin at a jaunty angle to the card blank and I was done!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to add a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Heartfelt

 

Hello,

 

Hope your week has gone well despite the freezing cold, wind and snow! Definitely a good reason to stay home and warm and maybe indulge in something crafty.

I'm getting straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge - a little bit of love to make us all feel cosy!

SHARE THE LOVE

Its Dawn here with this weeks challenge and as its nearly Valentines Day I would like to see your cards featuring some love. It doesn't have to be just for valentines.
Think of an occasion when someone needs a little love, a hug or even just a card to show you care. Things are hard at the moment so sending a card just because you care is so needed and will be appreciated.

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

Info

Square white card blank, plus more matching card for die-cutting the cascading hearts and the rectangular frame twice each.

I adhered the 2 heart cascades together, then did the same with the rectangular frames. Next I glued the frame on top of the cascade and then this whole piece to the card. 

I'd saved all the little hearts from the cascade so next I chose some 'sunset' shades of ink to colour a mix of the different sizes.  To add a bit of contrast I coloured some with aqua shades. 

To apply them to the card, I used a spot of glue to the back then pushed it into the relevant sized hole and made sure it was stuck in place my rubbing a small headed ball tool around each.

I added other hearts to some of the plain white ones that form part of the cascade, then used some of the spare ones to make single heart stacks to add outside the cascade.  

The words were cut from a couple of layers of black card, then 'Love' in an embossed gold card; this was adhered just off the black layer to create a bit of a shadow

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to add a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

Another Butterfly!

 

Hello, Happy Friday!

I hope you've had a good week, even though we're all staying in our homes and trying to keep Covid at bay.  Its shocking how virulent it is, so definitely worth taking extra care.  

After the news of the loss of the inspirational Capt. Tom we ventured out of our front door on Wednesday evening to applaud and give thanks for the way he brought the nation together last year.  What a hero.

It was also so lovely to see and exchange a few words with all our neighbours for the first time since before Christmas.  Hopefully we'll be allowed to resume our socially distanced Sunday chats before too long.

 
February Elemental Inspiration
It's Joanne here this week and as it's the first Friday of the month we have an elemental challenge for you.

 Choose at least three elements (colour scheme counts as one element) from the picture to kick start your project.

 Ideas might include violets, ferns, amethyst, twine, ribbon, pins, pen nibs, lace, books, book text, Edwardian lady or gent, garden tools, hats, shells, script sentiment.

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

 

 I chose the Twine, Lace, Ribbon and the Gold of the pen nibs, then added in some of the mauve shades for good measure!

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Smooth white card blank

I used washi tape to mask the borders, then painted with watered down Lilac-Lavendar Nuvo Embellishment Mousse using a large brush, and keeping as much variation in colour and thickness as I could manage. 

Once that was dry I mixed a tiny scrap of Old Navy and the same Lilac Nuvo mousse together to get a shadowy colour and added this through

my favourite stencil over parts of the base colour.

Next I used the same stencil with Gold Glacier paste, then to

 finish the background I stencilled in a few areas with PVA glue (clean the stencil quickly if you try this!) and added some bright gold gilding flakes over the glue.  Once it was completely dry I brushed off any excess to leave a few gilded pattens and little touches of shiny gold

The top layer of the butterfly is a Memory Box die, which I cut from some inked card. For the lower layer I made a template using the die, then cut it out in textured gold card. I adhered lengths of lace and some grosgrain ribbon to the card and positioned the butterfly on top. The small Black and white sentiment is from a set was created on the pc and printed out. I made a triple bow using twine and glued it to the the sentiment, adding a couple of gems for some bling.

To finish I added more gems, plus a few tiny circles cut from scraps of the textured gold card and scattered over the background

 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Butterfly Birthday

 

 hi there

I know! 😀 its been a while since I managed a midweek blog post, and I'm definitely not expecting it to be a regular thing - I know my limitations!

Here we are in February then - not my favourite month, but its been ok so far - yes, I know its only the 2nd but I'm trying to be positive, haha!! 

As usual, I'm slow blogging the things I've made, though to be honest there's not much really recent stuff as getting back to crafting after Christmas is always hard. So I've been scrolling back through photos from the end of 2020 to find the things I missed sharing

Today I've a birthday card made for a dear friend to share.

I used a similar background design for a few of my Christmas cards and liked it so much I thought I'd adapt it for a birthday card

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I started by using Washi tape to create the 3-squares grid and then added the colours using various shades of Nuvo Embellishing mousse.

The Tonic Scribble Circles were cut from an embossed silver card, and the swirly sprigs (also Tonic) from a pearly pale green card

For the butterflies (Hunkydory dies), I used more Nuvo mousse to make the lower wings and plain black card for the fancy upper layers.  I added a few silver gems to the lower layer so that they show through some of the holes in the upper ones

To finish I added the sentiment and a few more tiny gems

 The Black and White elements were pc generated.

 

 That's all for today, thank you so much for visiting, I hope you'll leave a comment, You've no idea how happy it makes me when someone leaves a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

    

Brighter Days are On Their Way (or, The Power of Positive Thinking)

 

  Hello,

  Well, we've almost made it to the end of January, it's been a tough month in so many ways, hasn't it?

 I really hope you and your loved ones are coping ok with all the Covid stuff -  it was always going to come back and bite us hard, especially when winter came around, if only more people had been more pessimistic (sometimes pessimism helps, you know!) and kept up their guard!
 It's not easy though, is it?

 

 This week's Daring Cardmakers challenge has been set by our lovely Queen of Mixed Media, Svenja:

This week especially the weather has been very varied in my area here in western Germany. We literally had it all: snow, sunshine, rain... no hail, though. So I guess the theme I thought up for you fit's just fine:

No Matter the Weather :-)

Get out your wellies and umbrellas, snowflakes, rainbows and parasols and make a weather-themed card!

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

One of the gifts in my Christmas stocking was a really cute little die set from Sizzix featuring lots of garden and gardening items. Among the dies was a welly boot and this challenge gave me the ideal opportunity to use it

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Card blank is a smooth white 'fat' rectangle with a top fold. To start with I inked up a few pieces of the same snoot card with various shades of ink.  I like the wau the inks work on the card, the finish is less 'flat' than if I'd used coloured cardstock, plus ot has a bit of a sheen.

I die cut 2 boots for each colour and glued the pairs together adding a small strip f card between the layers to give a little dimension. After arranging them on mu card I glued them down, again adding a scrap of card, to the reverse - this gave me enough of a gap to add the sentiment strip under the boots on the top row.

The sentiment was created in Paint Shop Pro and sized to fit the space. I cut narrow strips from spare inked card to make the banners and glued them to the reverse of the sentiment before gluing down.

For the flowers I found the smallest flower dies from various sets and cut them out from more inked scraps. 

To finish and add a bit of glamour for a rainy day when you need your wellies. I added gems for the flower centres on the boots.

 At this point I will tell you a secret: I don't own a pair of wellies 🤯😲😮

 Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Squaring Up

 

 Hello,

 

Hope you and your loved ones are keeping safe and well and managing to find some happy things amid all the bad stuff we are dealing with. 

 It's not easy though, is it?

My own piece of Positivity is that at last I'm starting to feel more creative! Whoop Whoop!

So I'm getting straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge as I actually enjoyed making it.  Though the flower did cause me a bit of a 'moment'!

This week our lovely Shabneez is in the chair with this challenge.

You're So Square!

Use squares on your cards - the more the better!  You could use a square card base, apertures, stamps or stencils.  Show me how you can use squares creatively!

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

I resisted the urge to go straight to the fab Scribbled Squares die set, which was Very brave of me!  Instead, I thought I'd have a bit of fun with Nuvo Embellishment Mousse and a Crafter's Workshop stencil

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I went off the 'square' by cutting a narrow strip off the side of white square card blank/  Maybe I should have left it square to keep in the spirit of the challenge, but I can be a rebel sometimes 😲😮
I used lots of different colours of lovely Nuvo Embellishment mousse with the TCW squares stencil.  I love the multi coloured mosaic effect that I ended up with - the problem was what to do next!

I thought a simple HAPPY BIRTHDAY greeting would work ok so cut a couple of black layers of each letter then a layer in a soft sheen gold card.  The plan was to stop there but it did look a bit unfinished.

I remembered making a flower from punched squares and I thought that would be a fun way to play with the theme.  They are a bit fiddly, but a bit of fun - with hindsight I'd have just used the flower and some basic leaves rather than the leafy swirl, but never mind, you can't have it all and I'm happy that just something worked!

 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Circles

 

Hello,

 

Hope you are keeping safe and well and coping with the Lockdown.  It'll be worth it in the end...

I'm getting straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge as I'm so late in posting.  Mainly because my first idea was a disaster!  In the end I went back to a simple layout I used for quite a few of my Christmas cards

It's Nat here bringing you this week's challenge.

Apparently it's National Bagel Day in the US of A today, so I'm challenging you to celebrate that round food favourite by featuring a circle / circle frame / circle aperture as the main focal point of your card.

But should you happen to have a bagel or even a doughnut in your stash, it's definitely a good excuse to include that on your card!

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

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square white card blank
Circles background stencilled with Nuvo Embellishment mousse

Scribbled Circles dies (Tonic Studios) cut in Turquoise Glitter card.

The sentiment is by Spellbinders, I cut a second time in the glitter card and trimmed down to the 'you' section, which was then adhered over the black layer

The butterfly (Hunkydory) was cut in a pale pearl turquoise card for the lower layer and black for the upper layer

To continue with the circles theme I added a few blur gems and stones to complete the card 

 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

A Whole New Year....

Hello, Happy New Year!

Hope all is well with you, and you are coping ok with this latest Covid-19 situation.  Hopefully all the vaccination programmes will start having an effect - though its going to take a very long time fora lot of us to get even as far as seeing the queue, let alone the front of it!

Getting back into crafting after the Christmas break is always tough for me. Even though I'm very happy to put the Christmas stuff away and eager to get on with other projects, when I sit at my desk nothing happens! Hey ho!

 

I can's say I'm completely happy with my card for the first Daring Cardmakers challenge of the year, but you have to start somewhere
don't you?

January Elemental Inspiration Challenge

 Just pick a minimum of 3 elements from Dawn's Wintry mood-board
 to use when making your card.
Using the Colour palette counts as 1 element..
We're looking forward to seeing what you make

 

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration

I chose to use the squares, the cup and a pop of bright orange as my elements for this card.

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Slim white card blank
I inked a piece of scrap white card with a couple of pale blue shades of ink, then added some Nuvo Embellishment Mousse in Powder Blue and  a tiny amount of Cornflower Blue over the top to give a little shimmer.

From this I cut the three square, which I matted onto Kraft card squares that I'd embossed with a wood-grain effect embossing folder

For the flowers and cup I started by inking more card scraps then used a Spellbinders die set for the cup and the flowers are from a Memory Box Snowflake wreath die. 

The sentiment is also by Spellbinders

I added a few blur gems to complete the card

 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe