For a special lady

Hi everyone!  I hope you are all enjoying the long Bank Holiday weekend.  Shame the weather is so rubbish down here in the south east of England but at least I'm not at work!

Today I have a grown up card to share with you...

Yes, very unlike my usual cute style!  And it only took me 15 minutes to make as I used goodies from the docrafts Eau De Nil collection - here's what I used...

Eau de Nil 6" x 6" paper pad

Eau de Nil Lace Papers

Eau de Nil Self Adhesive Crochet Border

Eau de Nil Pin Wheels

Now I just need to decide which special lady is going to receive this!  I'm off now to enjoy the rest of my time off - ttfn!

Day 3 of the Lil' Inker Designs new release blog hop!

Today is day 3 of our new Lil' Inker Designs release blog hop and today we are showing you more of the new stamp sets and  dies newbies over a five day blog hop!  Here is my DT make...

I just love these kids!!  They are from the Snowman's Soul set with a selection of matching sentiments.  I  used BasicGrey paper and I distressed softly the edges for a shabby chic feel.
 
Comment as you hop long as there are two secret prize blogs - the more you comment, the better your chance of winning!  We'll be giving away prizes to two winners and a $10 store credit to two others.
 

You should have arrived here from our talented graphic artists Karen and you should now hop off to fabby Debby Hughes.  If need to start at the beginning, go to the store blog here.  You should also visit the store here to see all the new goodies! 

I will be back later with my Kraftin' Kimmie new release post - see ya then!

JUGS Wild Card Challenge

OMG, I found this challenge really hard! I've never used a photo before on my cards and it took me aaages to come up with a design. But, whew, I did it!

This is a photo of my baby, Poppy, taken last Xmas. Isn't she gorgeous?!!! I love my baby! Those reindeer horns were a little tight but she eventually stopped trying to knock it off (with lots of help with treats) and kept it on for 2 minutes while I quickly took the photo! She is sooo tolerant!!

Did you notice the droopy dew drop in the top right corner?! Luckily it hadn't dried fully so I managed to straighten it up, whew! And another non-square card!

A big thank you to the wonderful Kristin who set this week's wild card challenge (and if you join in, you'll get an early Xmas pressie!). I'm so glad I did it because I know my parents are going to luuurve this card of their "granddaughter"! Now to make a replica for my in-laws...

Cardstock: Bazzill cardstock, BasicGrey Figgy
Stamps: Hero Arts Holiday Tags (Ho Ho Ho sentiment)
Mediums: white gel pen, Memento black ink, Stickles Star Dust
Accents: ribbon from stash, BasicGrey button, Dew Drops, Maya Road chipboard snowflake
Tools: Spellbinders Polka Dot Frame

Crazy 4 Challenge - C4C7 - oh *bleep*!

If you're British, you'll know that *bleep* is a polite swear word! I've been meaning to join in with the Crazy 4 Challenges and I thought I had eventually achieved it this week, BUT I'm one day out!!! Bleep, bleep, bleep!!!

Oh well, I'm going to submit it anyway because I spent a while dreaming up my design and enjoyed making it so much that I made two! They are NOT going to waste, ha ha!! Anyway, here they are, first the sketch, then the cards...





I wanted to create some depth so I used lots and lots of dimensional foam pads, even on the blossom. I also used my Quickutz Squeeze that I haven't used for months - I had forgotten how convenient it is to pull out and use. I must admit, it's a bit of a pain having to take out my Wizard and set up the various sandwiches. Still, the results are worth it, huh?

I actually made this one below, but I had forgotten to add the three accents at the bottom right corner! What a silly billy.



My friend recently had a little girl (yes, another one of my friends, must be something in the water around here) and I can't wait to see her! I was originally going to make a really, really girly pink card, but didn't have any appropriate paper, so ended up using my stash of Crate Paper from their Baby Bee collection.


Papers/cardstock: Papermania cream cardstock, Crate Paper Baby Bee collection
Mediums: various chalk inks
Stamps: The Greeting Farm Oh Baby sentiment
Accents: buttons from stash, Paperchase self adhesive hearts
Tools: Fiskars Apron Lace border punch, Quickutz Baby Clothes, Quickutz embossing (can't style name), Spellbinders Blossom and Circle Nestabilities

Happy Birthday Mum Take Two!!

I'm going to keep this one short after all my waffling yesterday! As I said then, I just wasn't happy with the card I made for my mum's birthday (yesterday's post here). After some cogitating I came up with this version instead...

And here it is front on...

I much prefer this! I think the balance is better and I prefer the less fussy flower arrangement. Now just to create an insert to go with it. And to find someone to give the other card to!

Papers/cardstock: various Bazzill cardstock
Stamps: K&Co Amy Butler Lotus Floral stamp set, sentiment from Hero Arts Great Flourishes Messages
Mediums: Versafine Onyx Black, VersaMark Dazzle in Frost, for the butterfly VersaMagic in Purple Hydrangea, Perfect Plumeria and Eggplant
Accents: ribbon and flowers from stash, button from BasicGrey Wisteria
Tools: sewing machine, Fiskars Upper Crest border punch, Spellbinders Label Four

Happy Birthday Mum!

Luckily my mum is IT illiterate and wouldn't know what a blog was if it was staring right at her! So I can upload the photo of the card I made for her birthday (this coming Friday) and I won't spoil the surprise. Because it's for my mum, I obviously wanted this card to be as special as possible. I'm still not 100% happy about the end result, but I have some time to experiment and improve it before Friday! Anyway, for this card I had three "wants":

1. To create a card purely from my own imagination and not to rely on any sketches or challenges
2. To use my sewing machine that she bought me last year and I only learnt to use it a couple of weeks ago (see here)!
3. To use my DCWV Far East papers as my mum originated from Hong Kong

I failed on the last one. No matter how much I played around with the Far East papers, I just couldn't get any inspiration! I still wanted to stick with the purple shades in there though and ended up creating this...


What do you think? I don't think it's too bad overall, but I don't like the flower arrangement - there's something not right about it but I'm not sure what it is!! It doesn't balance with the sentiment properly either. And I think the satin ribbon is too thin. Will have a think on that...
I do like the butterfly though! It's from the K&Co Amy Butler Lotus Floral stamp set. It wasn't easy to find in the UK, but I managed to buy it from Charmed Cards & Crafts (scroll down half the page via the link). I haven't used it before because I wasn't sure how to make the best of it and what I eventually did was to colour it with three varying shades of purple ink and then used a character shaper and moulding mat (normally used for floral punch craft) to make it pop - I think it worked quite well. You can buy the tools from Crafts U Love here. I also wanted to give the butterfly a slight sheen to it too. You can't see it in the photo, but I used a VersaMark Dazzle in Frost and stamped it directly onto some white thick card. I then dried it with my heat tool and then stamped the inked butterfly onto it. Originally I stamped the butterfly and then the Versamark ink on top but it diluted the colours too much. I then cut out the butterfly and stuck it on with PVA glue.
I used to be rubbish at cutting, but I found micro serrated scissors and now it's easy peasy! Before my cut outs looked messy, but now they look like professional die cuts! Well, perhaps not that good, but pretty close!
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I've eventually done some research into improving how I photograph my cards. I found some very easy cheap solutions but in reality it's really hard to buy the lighting and spend less than £70. Does that sound a lot or not? It's probably not, but I've read on blogs that they've done it on the cheap so I'm reluctant to spend any more than I need too! Anyway, what I did was to create the background using a white A4 folder, thick white paper, double sticky tape (lots of it!) and a cheap £20 desktop adjustable lamp. I haven't yet sorted out a full spectrum bulb but thought the results with the energy saving bulb (11 watt, equivalent to a normal 75 watt) that came with the lamp worked quite well. Here's how it came out on this first experiment...


Not too bad, but I had to crop the photo to focus just on the card and still had to use auto correct as it was still a little too dark. The big plus was that there was no yellowing that I got from my normal home lighting and I didn't even use a full spectrum bulb. The cheap lamp I got was really wobbly too which could be dangerous! It's definitely going back for refund and looks like I'll be spending that £70 afterall.
I don't know about your parents, but it's always really difficult to buy for mine. Firstly, they own everything they really want or need and, secondly, they don't want me to spend money on them - sound familiar?!! Instead of buying something my mum will just go and get a refund for, I thought I would make her some Christmas cards she can send this year. She seems to love my creations (even takes them into work to show them off! Talk about rose tinted glasses!) so I think it will go down well and we won't end up with our usual argument about "wasting money on her"! I don't mean to make her sound ungrateful - she just prefers me to put my hard earned cash towards my mortgage - what great mum!
Anyway, I'm waffling now. Must be the reduced champagne we got from Morrisons! ;)

Papers/cardstock: various Bazzill cardstock
Stamps: K&Co Amy Butler Lotus Floral stamp set, sentiment from Hero Arts Great Flourishes Messages
Mediums: Versafine Onyx Black, VersaMark Dazzle in Frost, for the butterfly VersaMagic in Purple Hydrangea, Perfect Plumeria and Eggplant
Accents: satin ribbon, paper flowers, heart pin, string - all from stash, button from BasicGrey Wisteria
Tools: sewing machine, Fiskars Upper Crest border punch, Spellbinders Label Four

Is this any better?!

It was a shame the photo I took of my card yesterday didn't do it justice so I thought I would take some more photos where there was better lighting and then to play around editing it.

Here's what I came up with...

I used Microsoft Office Picture Manager to edit it. I first used the auto correct but it just kept making it more yellow and grainy. I undid that, manually cropped it and then played with the brightness, contrast and colour. I think it's better but not a lot more! I think my options are to improve the initial lighting and get a better photo editing software. Time for some research into it!

In the nick of time...

Well I did it - I created my first week's card for this blog as I promised myself! But it was really close - I nearly cheated by publishing a card I have in stock, but I knew I had to keep my promise to myself!

Here it is, a card for my friend's new baby girl, Zara...

I started out with a shabby chic style in my head - I even had the crochet flower, lace and pins at the ready! No matter how hard I tried, it just wasn't working out for me. I ended up making this instead with a cleaner look. I got some inspiration from a card magazine, but unfortunately I can't remember which one - sorry magazine!

The photo doesn't do it justice, even if I say so myself - lol!! I put sticky pads behind the giraffe so it pops more than the photo suggests. The colours in real life are that bit brighter too. One of these days I'm going to find out how to use my Canon digital camera to best effect - maybe then I won't feel like I've wasted my money and should have got a throw away one instead!

I even went to the trouble of decorating the inside. I love the Hampton Arts Our Baby set - the sentiments are very thoughtful in a lovely feminine font. In case you can't read the text, this one says "Sometimes it's the smallish things that take up the most room in your heart." So sweet!

In comparison to the card I showed a couple of days ago... well there is no comparison! I so much more prefer this one! The proportions are right, the embellishments co-ordinate and there's a better use of the space. What would I change? I would make the cream/pink/green rectangular matting (that the giraffe sits on) narrower, perhaps a centimetre off. I don't particularly like the hole for the eye either - I originally intended to put a mini button there but I didn't have one small enough! A small gem wasn't right against the rest of the very mat look. I do like the mat look, but a subtle sheen probably would have finished it off perfectly - Glimmer Mist on the giraffe's spots and horns comes to mind. Overall though, very happy with it (and I'm a huge perfectionist!).

Here's what I used:

Papers/cardstock: K&Co Brenda Walton Small Wonders Girl mat pad

Stamps: Hampton Art Our Baby clear stamp set

Accents: green/white gingham from stash, mini heart buttons from stash

Tools: Fiskars Apron Lace border punch, Sizzix Original Giraffe #2, Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 1, hole punch (for giraffe spots), wavy decorative edge scissors