Simply Betty - Favourite Colours and 'Heavy on the Embellishments

Now those of you who know me know I tend to go for a fairly clean and simple design in the cards I make. Sam is corrupting me with Dylusion sprays & masks but I'm still a clean and simple girl underneath, so I decided to challenge myself by taking part in the 'Heavy on the Embellishments' Challenge at Simply Challenges. 

Simply Betty is also sponsoring this week's challenge at Through the Purple Haze Challenges the theme for which is 'Favourite Colours' so I decided to combine the two challenges.

Choosing my favourite colour is difficult as I have a range of favourite colours rather than just one. I love the bright Jewel colours - reds, deep pink, royal blue, teal etc but I'd be hard pressed to choose a favourite from them. The colour I've been drawn to most recently is teal so I decided to go with that. I used SBS's Movie Gala Betty and prepared to use all the embellishments I could!

What do you think? Still fairly clean and simple (it's me after all!) but as many embellishments as I could bear to put on it! So so many more than normal. I used Samaflora Roses, a florish cut from the Dienamics Medium Fancy Flourish coloured in with Promarkers, Gems and Pearls! She even has a glittery ring!

The colours I used are:

Skin - Coral, Sunkissed Pink, Blush, Pastel Pink Cheeks

Hair - Tulip Yellow, Sunflower, Gold

Dress - Turquoise, Marine, Petrol Blue, True Blue

Shawl - Cool Aqua, Duck Egg, Blender

I hope you like her - I'd love to know what you think x

Samaflora Flower Hair Grips

After the lovely comments I received on my Roses Headband I decided to make some Roses hair grips with some more of my Samaflora roses.

I took a pair of lovely yellow roses & dipped them in clear UTEE in my Meltpot. This isn't entirely necessary but makes them more endurable.

I then cut a strip of yellow card & used it to glue the hair grip to the back of the rose. I used Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive as it dries nice and strong.

A really simple idea but with these roses it looks so effective.

The Challenge this week at Through the Purple Haze is 'Flowers' and I thought these little pretties fitted the bill perfectly x

I'd love to hear what you think x

Surf's Up!

A summery themed card today using this week's challenge freebie from The Stamping Chef Facebook page. I happened to look at the Just Inpirational Challenges blog and thought their colour inspiration this week would work very nicely with the digi

This is the colour palette for the challenge:

and this is my card:

I think I've tied all the colours in nicely :D

The paper was from a 6x6 stack from Fancy Pants Designs called Beach Babe. The background is a bit yellower than it appears in the photo.

The Sentiment is from Create with TLC

I ventured away from my normal Promarker skin tones this time as I wanted this Surfing Babe to have a lovely tan so I used:

Skin - Cocoa, Cinnamon, Tan, Rose Pink Cheeks

Hair - Tulip Yellow, Sunflower, Gold, Raw Sienna

Costume - Cerise, Shocking Pink*, Vermillion*

Surf Board - Sky Blue, Azure True Blue

- Lemon, Yellow, Canary

Edit: I'm very proud to say this card has been awarded Top 3 in both challenges I entered it into:

In The Spotlight - The Stamping Chef

Just Inspirational Challenges

A Raver and an inspiration photo Challenge

I've made two cards today - both for challenges.

The first is inspired by the photo on the Just Inspirational Challenges challenge

As soon as I saw it a digi I own from Jellypark called Girl in a Bee Costume popped into me head  so I made this card :D

The sentiment is from Create with TLC  and the background digi paper is from Sassy Designs

I'd like to enter this into the Just Inspirational Challenges Challenge

Edit: 30/7/12 - WOW how exciting I got picked as Top 3 for the Just Inspirational Challenges :D Thank you so much! I'm over the Moon!

By coincidence the sponsor for the Just Inspirational Challenge is The Stamping Chef & that's who my other digi is designed by. 

I'm a Raver is for the Facebook fan group challenge. 

I used tulip yellow, sunflower, Gold & raw sienna for her hair

and cerise, shocking pink* and maroon for her outfit.

The sentiment is again by Create with TLC

Simply Betty - Spika the Bad Mermaid

It's challenge time over at the Simply Betty Facebook fan page again and this time we had a choice of a 'good' or 'evil' mermaid to play with. I was taken by the evil one (a naughty girl at heart me :P ) so had Spika to play with.

I decided to carry on my obsession with tags & colour her in a fairly dark way.

The tag is cut from water colour paper & sprayed with Cut Grass, Lime & Midnight Blue Dylusions ink sprays & stamped with a foliage stamp from the Stampin Up Set Pocket Silhouettes.

Spika is coloured using my promarkers:

Skin - Coral, Sunkissed Pink, Blush

Tail - Poppy, Crimson & Burgundy

Hair - Plum, Aubergine & Slate

Eyes - Marine & Petrol Blue

I'm pleased with how she turned out. The colours are a bit more intense in real life & she really does look like bad news.

I'd love to hear what you think x

Samaflora Roses

I've been lucky enough to be accepted on to the Design Team for Samaflora for the next 3 months. Sam makes the most amazing paper flowers. If you look at photos you can hardly tell they're made of paper at all!  I've never been one for using flowers in my designs before, but these I couldn't resist :D

Being on the DT means I had a wonderful pile of roses come through the post a few weeks ago which I got to play with :D (it's a hard life!!!)

I've made 2 creations so far - a wedding card & a hat band. The roses are a pleasure to work with an so versatile.

Here's the Wedding card. I used the lovely Wedding Couple from Redonkadoodles  & made it lovely & bright. I used my lovely yellow roses & foiled the wording with gold foil on my Foil Master. I love the depth the roses give the card.

My second creation was a flower head band to go around my hat. I've had one on my hat for years with cala lilies on it, but unfortunately my young niece decided to 'pick' the flowers last year so it was left a bit bare. I kept the basic head band and when the Samaflora roses arrived I knew they were perfect for the job. 

This is what I stared with -the band, some leaf trim & 6 lovely white roses from Samaflora 

To make the roses more durable I dipped them in UTEE melted in my Meltpot. I used my heat tool to the thickness of the UTEE as it ended up quite thick when first dipped & meant the detail of the roses was lost a little. Blowing it carefully with the heat gun worked perfectly.

I attached the roses to the head band by winding the wires around it and then wound the leaf trim around the wire to make it look nicer. 

Here's the result

and on the hat 

I hope you like them. I'd love to know what you think. 

I have some more roses to play with so will create something else very soon x

I'd like to enter my head band to the Anything Goes challenge on the Through the Purple Haze Challenge blog. It's a new challenge blog with a challenge every week & I'm going to do my best to enter every week. A huge challenge for me, but something I'd love to try x

Summer Fairy from Simply Betty

Simply Betty has been celebrating her 3rd Birthday this month and had a wonderful image called Summer Fairy available. The monthly Facebook challenge was to create a background using any technique you wanted, but without using any stamps of any sort.

This is what I created:

I used several processes so have taken a few photos to show you how I've made them.

First of all I made masks by cutting two designs from the Silhouette Online Store out of thin plastic:

A day in the Sun by Loni Stevens

3 Sunburst Patterns by Alaa' K

I placed the first mask on the blank tag. Using Repositional spray would have been perfect for this job but I used small pieces of rolled up magic tape.

I sprayed the top section of the tag with my Lemon Zest Dylusions Spray

Leaving the A Day in the Sun mask in place I then added the Sunburst mask over the top

and sprayed Pure Sunshine & Cherry Pie Dylusions to cover the tag

I removed both masks & lightly sprayed the tag with a yellow mice powder/ water spray to give it a nice shimmer.

This was the end result. Ignore the slight mistake - a lesson I've learnt is don't drop the tag on the wet mask you've laid to the side or it makes a bit of a mess :P

I coloured Summer Fairy using my Promarkers:

Skin: Coral, Sunkissed Pink, Blush with Pastel Pink Cheeks

Hair - Berry Red, Mandarin, Canary

Wings - Primrose, Lemon

Dress - Sky Blue, Arctic Blue, Blender

I hope you like my effort. I'd love to hear what you think x

Digi Galore Challenge - Summer

It's challenge time over at Digi Galore again. This fortnight the theme is Holidays and our sponsor is Sassy Studio Designs 

I decided to create a corner bookmark for a holiday journal for someone going on holiday to China. I used my Hougie Board to make the corner bookmark and China Honey from Sassy Studio Designs.

The background paper and tags are from a Papermania pack called Oriental Treasures. 

I coloured China Honey with my Promarkers 

and printed the words in a the free Shanghai font from DA Font and foiled it on my Foilmaster from Thyme Graphics 

Come on over and join in x