Mum & Dad Inky Impressions Anniversary!

Here's the double stepper card (I think that's what it's called) I made for Mum & Dad's Anniversary last week. We went to Cornwall, so I thought the lighthouse was quite apt, and thought I'd go for a slightly cute-funny card!!

Supplies:
Images: "Rock 'n Roll Donnie" and "Zoe's Dress Up Day" from Inky Impressions, the lighthouse is from CocoDingo, all coloured with Promarkers.
Papers: Papermania "Love" paper pack - spotted and stripy paper
Embellishments: Heart brads, peel off hearts, glamour dust.

Supplies:
Inky Impressions Challenge #25 - Shaped cards
Creative Inspirations #130 - Let's Celebrate
Crafts and Me #53 - Stripes
Papertake Weekly - Creature Comforts
Cute Card Thursday #182 - Anything Goes
Totally Gorjuss #98 - Nothing square about me!
Creatalicious Challenge #26 - Anything Goes

Dad in his Deckchair.....DON'T LOOK DAD!!!

We're off to Padstow in Cornwall next week so I'm busy trying to get all my cards sorted that need doing before then! It's Dad's Birthday whilst we're away, so here's the card I've made for him - hopefully a reflection on what he'll be doing on the beach!

Supplies:
Image: "Deckchair Dreaming" from Lili of the Valley, coloures with Promarkers & chalks.
Papers: All three papers from DCWV Scrapbook kit in a stack "All Occasions"
Embellishments: Handmade green bow, green/blue sticker from DCWV kit, peel off sentiment.

Challenges:
Lili of the Valley Challenge #110 - Sketch
Bizzy Bec's Challenge September - Blue, Green & White
Crafty Calendar September - Let Sleeping Bears Lie
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Charisma Cardz #35 - Anything Goes
Stampin' for the weekend #15 - Holidays
Allsorts Challenge #119 - Green & Blue
Crafty Cardmakers #51 - Summer Holiday Memories

Wedding Box!

Here's the box I decorated for Rachel - I wanted to give her something to keep some of her wedding "memories" in, and also put a few little keepsakes in. I knew she had her something old, something new & something borrowed, but I thought she might need something blue (and a silver sixpence for her shoe)!

The flowers are handmade - a technique I learnt at a recent Trimcraft demo! Basically cutting some scalloped circles, wetting them, folding them/scrunching them, then securing with a brad.

 Supplies:
Basics: Papermania nested box, Artiste Pearl "Ice Blue" acrylic paint
Embellishments: Chipboard bookplate, peel off, pearl brads, ribbon, gems
Tools: Nesties blossoms (for the flowers)

Challenges:
Allsorts Challenge #116 - Anything But A Card
Creative Craft Challenges - Anything But A Card
Creative Card Crew - Hand made flowers
Papertake Weekly - Blooms, Pearls & Free (gems)
Crafts and Me #48 - Blues
Crafty Your Passion #71 - Anything But A Card

Forever Friends Twirly Ribbon Border

Thought I'd have a bit of a play with some fine ribbon on this card, twisting and gluing it to make a little border!

Supplies:
Image: Forever Friends "Christmas Gift" coloured with Promarkers
Paper: Spotted paper from Papermania "Sweet Nothings" pack.
Embellishments: Pink & blue ribbon, gems, peel-off sentiment.

Challenges:
Bizzy Bec's Store Blog Challenge July - Borders & Frames
Die Cut Dreams #94 - Animal Antics
Creative Card Crew - Animal Antics
Papertake Weekly  - Getting Cute
Totally Papercrafts #75 - Girly Girls
Stamptacular Sunday #120 - Animal Antics
I Did It Creations #64 - Animals
Fab N Funky #82 - Animal Magic
Crafty Creations Challenges #128 - Seeing Double

Flowersoft Oriental Window

Here's some of the goodies I won on the Flowersoft blog hop a while back.

Supplies:
Paper: Flowersoft Scenic Windows Oriental, Papermania leaf paper
Embellishments: Flowersoft Russet Red, Ultra Fine Pink Fizz, Ultra Fine Citrus Crush, Ultra Fine Burnt Sienna.

Challenges:
Flowersoft Challenge #32 - Bright Colours
Creative Craft Challenges - Pretty Blossoms
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Charisma Cardz #27 - All about flowers
Allsorts Challenge #111 - Free & Easy
One Stitch At A Time #70 - Anything Goes

Father's Day Dog Song!

I kept with the dog theme for my Father's Day card! These Whimsy dogs just look so much like a cartoon version of our Benny that I can't resist using them!
This particular image just makes me think of the song "How much is that doggy in the window?"

Supplies:
Image: "Dog Song" from Whimsy Stamps, coloured with Promarkers.
Paper: Printed from a CD by my Mum as I've run out of ink! Not sure which CD - one of Mum's!
Embellishments: Bone rub-on's.

Challenges:
Dream Valley #9 - Father's Day
Cupcake Craft #146 - Oh Boy
Papertake Weekly - Dads & Lads
Craft us Crazy #10 - Father's Day
Crafty Sentiments - Father's Day

Happy House-Mouse Anniversary!

It was Aunty Marilyn & Brian's first wedding anniversary at the weekend, so I made them a little card. They found the HM image funny and were trying to decide who was which mouse!

Supplies:
Image: "Olive a Party" from House-Mouse Designs, coloured with Promarkers.
Paper: Pink Petticoat Vintage Rose Collection
Tools: XCut border punch system & glasses/heart punch
Embellishments: Ribbon (hand-tied bow) with curls stuck in place with glue. Sentiment from Forever Friends die-cut sheet. Glitter on tape underneath border punch for sparkly background!

Challenges:
Crafts & Me #37 - Punch It Out
Inky Impressions  #16 - Shine On
C.R.A.F.T #105 - Wedding/Love
Craft Us Crazy #9 - Love/Remembrance
Cupcake Craft #145 - Things with tails
Pollycraft Monday #96 - Love & Marriage
I Love Promarkers #68 - Sparkly Bling
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

House-Mouse & Friends GDT - May Flowers

So, how excited was I to receive an email inviting me to be a guest designer for House-Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge for the month of May?

I love the House-Mouse stamps, and loved the theme - "May Flowers" as I had this gorgeous "Spring Blossoms" image coloured up and ready to go when the sun came out!

I you haven't already, pop on over to the challenge blog post to see what the fabulous DT have created! And this fortnight's sponsor is Simon Says Stamp with $15 worth of goodies!

 

Supplies:

Image: "Spring Blossoms" from House-Mouse Designs, coloured with Promarkers.

Paper: Papermania Capsule Collection Sunshine paper, Orange Coordinations cardstock for floral border.

Tools: Martha Stewart floral border punch

Embellishments: Flowers from Papermania Capsule Collection Sunshine collection, Hero Arts stick-on pearls, die-cut greeting.

Challenges:

By The Cute & Girly May - Anything Goes

Crafter's Companion #12 - Girl's Birthday

Oldie but a Goodie #18 - Say it with Flowers

Dream Valley #6 - Flowers

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

Crafty Sentiments - Flowers

Top Tip Tuesday #32 - Open Challenge

Sundays with Crissy #17 - Flowers

My Mother's Day Whimsy Creation!

I won five of the new Whimsy Stamps digis in their March release hop, and these are two that I decided to use for my Mother's Day card. Crissy Armstrong's "In the Doghouse" on the left is my Benny dog, and Meljen's Designs "She Loves Animals" is just perfect!
I had a go at a twisted easel card, and was surprised at how easy it was (once I'd worked out which way round to stick the images)!

Supplies:

Images: "In the Doghouse" & "She Loves Animals" from Whimsy Stamps, both coloured with Promarkers.

Sentiment: "Happy Mother's Day" from My Grafico.

Paper: Paw print card from Payper Box.

Embellishments: Dog themed brads (forgot where from, sorry!), Papermania rub-on pawtracks & bones.

Challenges:

Crafty Sentiments Challenge - Mother's Day

Paperplay Challenges #13 - For Mum
Stamp Something - April Digi Day
Creative Inspirations #56 - Mother's Day
Quirky Crafts #7 - Twisted Easel &/or Mother's Day
One Stitch at a Time #56 - Something 3D
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Craft Your Passion #52 - Anything Goes
Sarah Hurley Challenges #36 - Mum's the Word
I Did It Creations Challenge #49 - Anything Goes

Mother's Day Gift Box & Jewellery!

Mum's been asking me to make her some hair slides for AGES, and I have now done two different ones (although keep trying to distract her so that it's a surprise for Mother's Day)! I've also made her a bracelet, and having had some nesting boxes sitting on my desk for ages, thought that one would make a good jewellery box!

Supplies:

Image: "Wee Suzi" by Wee Stamps coloured with Promarkers. "Happy Mother's Day" from Delicious Doodles.

Paper: Pink Petticoat Vintage Rose Collection.

Embellishments: Chipboard flowers coloured with Promarkers.

Base: Nesting box from Papermania

Supplies: 80mm Hair barette, green bugle beads, acrylic flowers/leaves, 4mm pearls & nylon thread

Supplies: 80mm hair barette, 4mm red firepolish beads, 4mm red/black bicone crystals, red/black seed beads, nylon thread.

Supplies: Textured silver plate chain, black suede cord, silver plated head pins, Swarovski cubes, cord ends, lobster clasp.

Challenges:

Allsorts Challenge #95 - Make a gift box

Stamping for the weekend #6 - Mother's Day
Crafty Catz #74 - Mother's Day

Craft Your Days Away #16 - For Mum
One Stop Craft #123 - Diamonds are a girl's best friend

Secret Crafter Saturday #126 - Anything but a card
Dream Valley Challenge #3 - Mother's Day
Simon Says Challenge - Mother's Day
Papertake Weekly - It's a Mom thing
Ooh La La Challenge #76 - Mother's Day
Die Cut Dreams #85 - Mother's Day

Good Luck in Green!

Well, it's St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. Lliving near Cheltenham, home of the Gold Cup (aka Cheltenham Festival) I know there will be a lot of Guiness-drinking leprechauns around! Was hoping to go to the races myself, but didn't get around to finding a ticket in time, so I suppose I'll just watch it on the tv. I thought this card was perfect to celebrate!

Supplies:

Images: "Good Luck Frame" from Create with TLC (printed over the paper)

Paper: The green shamrock paper is from a Papercraft Inspirations download.

Embellishments: Chipboard shamrock, inked green & decorated with gems.

Challenges:

Sentimental Sundays #46 - Let's Go Green

One Stop Craft #122 - Clean & Simple

Allsorts Challenge #94 - Luck o' the Irish

Meljen's Designs #49 - Green

Inky Impressions - Monochromatic

Fab n Funky #64 - Going Green/St Patrick's Day

Papertake Weekly - Trio-tastic (three shamrocks)

Creative Card Crew - Green

Bee Crafty Challenge #18 - Festival

Simple Thank You!

This is a card for my "best friend from school" Rach's parents - they took us (Rach and I) to Birmingham on Saturday to go bridesmaid dress shopping. (Rach gets married in July and all three bridesmaids live in different counties so this was my turn to dress up)! They took us for a lovely meal at a great Italian restaurant before the shop-trawling began. Obviously it's not really a "dad" experience so Rach's dad went off to the technology dept of Selfridges to watch the sport! Then it was just Rach, her mum and I - we got a lot done, including a little side-track to Jane Norman (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE JN!) and we may have narrowed it down to 2 dresses, which the other girls will try and then we can start with the accessorizing!

Supplies:

Image/Sentiment: The lovely bunny is from the "Daisy & Dandelion" range, and coloured with Promarkers. "Thank You" sentiment is from Raindrop Echo Designs.

Papers: Both the flowery and spotted papers are from Papermania's Capsule Collection "Lemon Sorbet".

Tools: Nestabilities deckled rectangles.

Embellishments: The yellow ribbon is also from the Capsule Collection.

Challenges:

Crafty Calendar #18 - Spring

Stamp & Create #9 - Spring Break

Papertake Weekly - Lemon Zingy

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - Spring has Sprung

Paper Sundaes #60 - Keep it Simple

A Magical Birthday for Mum!

It's Mum's Birthday on Monday, but I have had to be super-prepared this year as I go in for my shoulder surgery tomorrow so think my right arm will be un-useable for at least a few days. The presents are wrapped, I've made my card to Mum, and I'm currently making Dad's for her!
The image is "Wings of Hope" from Whimsy Stamps (a Crissy Armstrong creation)- a beautiful Pegasus carousel horse! I've coloured it with Promarkers, and glittered the wings and hooves. My sentiment is also from Whimsy Stamps (Raindrop Echo).
I've used some flourishy pink and spotted blue paper from Papermania's Henbury Lane collection, some blue vellum which has been stitched with silver thread, a ribbon with heart-shaped brad (that's been hanging around the drawer forever), and some die cut flowers with gems.

Challenges:
Ooh La La Creations #73 - For Someone Special
Pollycraft #80 - Special Birthday
Sketch & Stash #55 - Sketch & neglected heart ribbon brad, so old I forget where it's from!
Oldie But A Goodie #12 - Add a Heart
Papertake Weekly - Putting on the Glitz
Top Tip Tuesday #22 - All Stitched Up - My top tip for stitching by hand like this is to plan your stitches first before making holes, otherwise you may end up with your loose ends in the wrong place, or uneven stitching!
Charisma Cardz #6 - Mythical/Fantasy (2nd entry)
Cute Card Thursday #151 - Hearts & Flowers
Paperplay #6 - Hearts & Flowers but not Valentine's
Sundays with Crissy February - It's all about Love

Pink & Flowery!

Here's another of the Forever Friends decoupage cards I made yesterday - I love the girlyness of this one!
Again the flowery/spotted paper is from the kit, as is the sentiment. I've added a bit of fringing (trying to use up old bits of ribbon), and some little flowers embellished with gems.

Challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers #38 - Florals

Forever Friends - Dots & Spots

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes +/- Flowers

Top Tip Tuesday #20 - Anything Girly

Totally Gorjuss #65 - As you like it (I love the pink & flowery)

Crafty Catz Weekly # 67 - Flowers

Papertake Weekly - New Beginnings

They are having a great Blog Hop over at Papertake Weekly to celebrate their 3rd Birthday! The challenge for this week is to choose a challenge from the last 3yrs....ANY challenge!

I've chosen "New Beginnings" from 5th Jan 2010 as I have a very good friend who has FINALLY moved into a new house with her fiance after a lot of waiting for the previous owner to get out!

The image is a digi stamp from Mo's Digital Pencil, called "Home Tweet Home", coloured with Promarkers. I've used brown spotted paper from a Daisy & Dandelion paper pack, and my Nellie Snellen multiframe circles.

Challenges I'm entering:

Papertake Weekly - New Beginnings

Pollycraft #64 - Anything Goes

Bee Crafty #39 - Furry/Fluffy friends (I hope feathery counts too)!

One Stop Craft #100 - Congratulations

CPS Challenge #187 - Sketch

House Mouse Challenge Sketch & Blog Hop

I've made this card for my cousin's son's birthday - he's 5yrs old next week and just started school, so I thought this "Bedtime Stories" image was perfect! It's coloured with Promarkers. The spotted & diamond paper is from the Dovecraft Masculine paper pack, and I've added some old buttons I found lurking in a drawer, some little metallic-looking embellishments & some twine. The green punched edge was made using my Martha Stewart scallop border punch. I've inked all the way around the card with bronze pigment ink.

Challenges I'm entering:

House Mouse Monday Challenge #78 - Sketch & Blog Hop!

A Spoon Full of Sugar #122 - Anything Goes
Papertake Weekly - Animal Magic
Just Cute Bears #35 - Punch It
Corrosive Challenge #82 - Clean up the dust
Totally Gorjuss #48 - Wild Thing
Creative Cottage Challenge #23 - Birthday Boy

Distressed Autumn

Well, I've just come back from having a lovely time in Derby at Mum's godson's wedding. The sun was shining, the bride was beautiful, and a good day was had by all! I stayed at my Aunty's overnight (as she and her husband looked after the dogs for me while I was at the wedding). So I didn't have time to show you the card I made on Saturday for my other Uncle's birthday... I had a go at distressing (after the arrival of my Making Memories edge scraper) but wasn't quite brave enough to use the one Tim Holtz distress ink I have (as I have no foam pad thingy), so I used a little bronze inkpad instead! I also used some old handmade paper (not by me, though), and ripped the edges of that. The image is from Joanna Sheen's Pamela West Collection CD-Rom, and perfect for the time of year we're approaching! The spotted & striped papers are from Dovecraft Masculine paper pack.

Challenges I'm entering:

Papertake Weekly Sketch #47 - Sketch

Sir Stampalot September - All Distressed

Creatalicious Challenges #13 - Vintage

Allsorts Challenge #69 - Colours of Autumn

Paperplay Challenge #36 - Autumn Is Coming

Pollycraft Challenge #61 - Autumn Colours

Here's looking at you, kid!

Dad's birthday card!! I've used House Mouse Gruffies "Finding Friends" image, and coloured it with Promarkers. I've used two different sheets of Dovecraft Masculine paper pack - the diamond and checks, layered onto brown card, with one brown ribbon and a peel-off.

I took Mum and Dad to the airport this morning and they've just called to say they are about to board the plane to Mexico.

Challenges I'm entering:
The Pixie Cottage #34 - Sketch & Family
Stamp Something - Cute
Pile it On #35 - Layers
Papertake Weekly #58 - Just the one (piece of ribbon)

My first altered chipboard!!

At the last DoCrafts demo Mum & I went to at Ross Labels, the demonstrator (Louise) had made a wall sign using a page from a chipboard album. Now I have a few of these from a blog candy I won a while ago (they're made by Crayola), and that was just the inspiration I needed to get them out and have a go. At the same demo I also bought some little calendar tabs. Here's what I came up with...

Side One is decorated with striped paper from DCWV Scrapbook stack. The sentiment was downloaded from Papercrafts Magazine website. I think it's a brilliant one! I've sanded & inked the edges of the star shape and added some gems to each point for a bit of bling! 3 lovely roses to finish it off!

Side Two - The paper Papermania's Love paper pack, with a sentiment is from Create with TLC. Paulette has loads of fantastic sentiments and word arts so go and see the blog!! I've used a couple of chipboard hearts and some Zoomz (also won in candy). I popped a couple of eyelets into the punched holes and used some of my jewellery tiger tail wire & beads to make a loop to hang the calendar with.

Challenges I'm entering:

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle #50 - No images

Sentimental Sundays #15 - Anything Goes

Papertake Weekly #55 - Old, New, Borrowed or Blue (old is chipboards, new is calendar)

Sir Stampalot August - Bring on the bling

Partying with Penny Black, in Pink!!

My cousin's daughter is 13 soon, so I thought I'd make her a really girly card! I've used the Penny Black "Partying" stamped image, coloured with Promarkers. The spotted paper and light pink is from a Forever Friends decoupage pack, and the darker pink is just Dovecraft plain paper pack. I've used a wire word I made myself, a few lovely flowers, a die-cut sentiment and some gems!

Challenges I'm entering:

Papertake Weekly #45 - Sketch

Simon Says Challenge - Going Dotty

Creative Inspirations #39 - Anything Goes

Stamp & Create #4 - Flowers