It’s time for a wedding over at Dream Valley!! :)

Hey everyone :)

How are you all out there in blogland? Hope you’re all well and enjoyed the lovely sunshine we’ve been having... let’s hope it comes back soon!! :) So, a little post from me today to show I’m still alive... you’ve probably figured I’m still not feeling so great, and I’ve actually been taking a little break from cardmaking and blogging, but I had this card ready and waiting and wanted to join in the fun at Dream Valley this fortnight... it’s a bit of a special one as one of our lovely team, Mel, is getting married today and so our challenge theme this time is ‘Weddings/Love’ in her honour!! :) We are sponsored by OSCC :)

I made this card last year for some friends and really worked to get as many personal touches in as I could... I wasn’t able to go to their wedding as I can’t travel so the card was my way of sending love and happy wishes for their lives together :)

I knew they were having a vintagey theme with birdcages and that their bridesmaids were wearing deep red so I strayed from my usual safe wedding card combo (white and silver with a hint of the accent colour if I know it, usually pearlescent card and never any patterned DPs!!) and went for something completely different, looking around for a way to include all the aspects... and I was really pleased with the outcome... but you always wonder if you’ve got it right don’t you... so when I got a thank you card telling me how much they loved it and mentioning all the bits I’d managed to include, it made me so, so happy!! :)

I heat embossed the gorgeous LOTV image and painted it with Twinkling H2Os- three different shades of white for a bit of interest!!lol- and chalk pastels for the suit and skin/hair as I didn’t want those to be pearly :) I inked the edges of all the papers for depth and interest, too.

I created a cluster of papers, pins, charm and lace next to the image panel to draw the eye in, inking the lace with the same DI to take the edge of the whiteness and looping one of the pins to attach the charm. The papers I found are so lovely and gave me vintage look I wanted so easily :)

I added my friends’ initials in DI- which did come out rather stronger than I envisaged :S – and then heat embossed ‘Congratulations’ over the top.

I looked all over for birdcage charms but couldn’t find any at the time- I did, of course, very soon after!!lol- so looked for an svg cut file online instead and struck lucky :) The idea to use it as a mask was a last minute one but I think it looked better like that thank if I had just stuck the die-cut on :)

The List:

• Two 6” Sq. White card blanks to make the base
• Image – ‘Mr & Mrs’ from LOTV
• Versamark ink pad, Silver embossing powder and heat tool
• Twinkling H20s and chalk pastels to watercolour
• Papers from Basic Grey Cappella pad and V&A Hanoverian Collection pad (DoCrafts)
• Labels 18 Nesties and Nellie’s Doily dies
• Distress Ink in Pumice Stone
• Bird with Cage svg file - We Can Bea Original
• ‘Congratulations’ stamp from Cat’s Life Press and alphas from Lakeland years ago
• Lace, pins, charm and ivory flat-backed pearls from stash

I haven’t really got much clue what challenges are around at the mo’ and don’t really feel like searching any out or linking them up but, I did notice there is an Anything Goes challenge at Lili’s Little Fairies and I so rarely get the chance to enter there that I can’t resist that one!! :)

So, thank you for stopping by today and for any comments on this or my last couple of cards!! :) I don’t know how long my ‘little break’ from cardmaking will last- it’s entirely unprecedented for me to choose not to make cards as cardmaking is usually my ‘little break’ from the rest of my life and not something I can cope without, so I don’t really know what to make of it :S - but I’ll be back sometime soon-ish, I hope... maybe I’ll even share my first forays into crochet as I have finally got around to having a go at that after years of wanting to... seems I simply can’t not do anything creative at all so have been crocheting a bit and knitting- when I’ve not had my nose in a book that is... if that saying still works when you’re reading a Kindle!?!!lol 

Don’t forget to pop over to Dream Valley to check out the amazing creations from the rest of the team- including some fab new members this time, too!! :) – and just have a look at the beautiful Wishing Well Mel has made for her Wedding Day!! :)

Puss in Purple Boots...

Hello everyone!! :)

I wasn’t sure which of the cards I have stored up on my netbook just waiting to share with you I wanted to show next but I realised I had several which would fit perfectly with the Monochrome challenge over at Dream Valley and, in the end, I’ve chosen this one which has a matching gift and was made for a friend- who has a cute little cat called Puss and loves purple as much as me!! :) – a little while ago...

I’ll post the details of the bracelet properly in another post later but I took this pic as they went so well together so thought I’d show it :)

I used the most gorgeous purple papers from the Papermania Henbury Lane pack for this one- I’d been wanting these papers for a long while- mostly because of these beautiful purples!! :) - when I found them half price... and so I bought two!!lol Glad I did as well as they are all lovely!! :)

The adorable image is from LOTV and coloured with PMs- I had just bought some new purples to see if I could get a better blend than I had managed with the shades I had and I coloured several of these images with different combinations- I have since managed to use most of them but I can’t say I was really happy with any of the blends I got- I think this one could have been a bit pinker to go better with the papers :S  ...still, practise makes perfect, as they say, and I think I’ve managed better since so at least I’m heading in the right direction!!lol Great stamp to practise on, too with the nice open area in the boot with some soft folds to aim for- must have another go with it!! :) Oh, I also tried the dotty shadow technique I’d been seeing a lot of around Blogland at the time- I like it... but boy was it hard on the hands and long winded!! Maybe not for everyday, anyway!!lol

I inked the edges of all the layers a tiny bit with Dusty Concorde DI straight from the pad and added the little bit of seam binding and a pretty pearl slider in the darker shade to match the ink and provide some contrast :)

The gems are some beautiful Aroura Borealis coated ones I got from Crafty Emma’s along with the CLP sentiment stamp in the summer and they go perfectly with these papers :)

I used:

• 6” Sq. Card blank
• LOTV Puss in Boot image- stamped in Memento and coloured with ProMarkers (don’t remember the colours, I’m afraid, as it was all very hit-and-miss experimental and too long ago!! :S )
• Papermania Henbury Lane papers
• Nellie’s rectangle and Doily dies
• Seam binding from The Ribbon Girl
• Pearl Ribbon Slider
• Dusty Concorde Distress Ink
• Cat’s Life Press sentiment stamp
• AB coated purple gems
• Sakura Clear Stardust and Clear Glaze pens

So, all in all, I was really pleased with how this one came out- especially as I’d managed to include so many different things I’d not tried/used before!! :) And, of course, the fact it’s all in my fav purples helped- don’t seem to craft with purples that often!! :) Hope you like it too!! :)

I’d like to enter this in the following challenges: Dream Valley – Monochrome :) ; LOTV - Warm and Cosy (I bet that little kitty’s very cosy tucked up in one of his owner’s best boots!!lol) :) ; Papertake Weekly – Get In Shape (use three or more different shapes- I have rectangles, circles- the doily- and a square for my base) :)

If you’d like to see more of the bracelet then I’ll hopefully be back with that later on tonight- want to get this posted before I miss the challenge though!! :)

Hope you’re all okay and enjoying the weekend so far- it’s been lovely and sunny here all day which always makes things seem better, doesn’t it!?! :)

Gifts Galore!! :) And ‘Happy New Year!!!’ to you all!!! :)

Hello everyone!! :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!?! Mine went a bit pear-shaped (though I did still have a nice time in an odd sort of way!! :) ) and I’m still not feeling great so I hope you’ll forgive this being an incredibly short, not very informative post only I remembered I wanted to enter this in the Crafter’s Companion Challenge and need to do it –like, right now!! ;D

So, here’s a card I made the week before Xmas for a friend following the sketch at Crafter’s Companion- I loved working with this sketch sooo much, so simple but a joy to make!! :)

The fab LOTV image is coloured with PMs and the card is basically using the same items as my previous Xmas cards so please have a look below and forgive me for not being upto managing the detail at the mo’!! (Will come back and do it properly later if I can) :S The only things I’ve not used before are the Crafter’s Companion Spray and Sparkle in Sliver, which I used to get the gorgeous sparkle on the snowflakes, and the fab Chocolate Box Card Candy!! :)

 

A few close-ups :) Was really pleased with the way the light caught the Dew Drops!! :)

So, I’d like to enter this in these challenges: Crafter’s Companion – Fab Sketch :) ; LOTV – New Beginnings (this is the first time I’d used this stamp) :)

All that’s left is for me to wish you all a very, very happy and healthy 2011 for yourselves and all your loved ones!!! :) :)

hugs,

Little Baby Bears...

Hey!! :)


I have another set of fairly quick and simple cards to share today :) A family friend is due to have her first baby in the next couple of weeks so I wanted to get on and make the card so it’ll be ready whenever the little one decides to put in an appearance...only trouble with that theory is that they’ve decided they didn’t want to know the sex of the baby and I don’t see the point of being able to make your own cards to suit the occasion and then just doing a green or yellow baby card!! So I’ve covered all bases and made both...and while I was about it, I thought I may as well make a couple of spares for my box, too!! And here they are:

I simply couldn’t make enough space on my desk to get a shot of all four together in any normal way so there’s a bit of a precarious house of cards thing going on here- honestly I barely dared breathe!!lol I wanted to keep the colours very light and to use Polka Dots and Ginghams as I've seen several baby cards like that lately and really liked them :) Also, our friend was always very fond of Forever Friends when we were younger so I’ve been planning to use this stamp since we heard she was pregnant :)

I used the sketch at Just Cute Bears for the layout, which I really like :) The papers are all from an old Papermania kit that I got from QVC years ago and I edged them all with a ColorBox Cat’s Eye Chalk inkpad- French Blue for the boys and Pastel Pink for the girls. The circles are cut with Nesties and the ribbon slider with the smallest die from the Nellie’s Rectangle set. I used striped white ribbon as I want to enter these at Allsorts and wasn’t sure that Gingham would count for the stripes- why is it that no matter how big a selection of papers you have, you never have the combination of colour and pattern that you need!?!!!
lol

The bear is Forever Friends and for the first time I’ve tried colouring an FF image with Promarkers. After a little trial and error, as I still don’t seem to have the many of the colours that most people use for them, I settled on Oatmeal for the shading followed by Pastel Yellow all over and the Ivory over that to tone it all down a bit. Room for improvement for sure but for now don’t think they came out too badly and at least now I won’t have the problem of which ink to use as I did when I was still colouring the bears with water-based pens and then wanted to use my PMs on the rest of the image!!! :S The sling is paper pieced and the greeting is from a cute Woodware Clear baby set. Then just some flat-backed pearls and a few touches of Stardust Stickles and I was done!! :)

So, I’d like to enter these in the following challenges: Just Cute Bears and Friends – fab Sketch :) ; Allsorts – Spots and Stripes :) ; Wild Orchid Crafts – Pastels :) ; and Top Tip Tuesday – Anything Goes :)

Thanks for reading and for any comments you might leave!! :) I hope you’re all well and have a good weekend- is this the one where the clock change gives us an extra hour’s sleep or when we lose an hour?! I can never remember but I hope for extra- we should get something to make up for the darkness and cold after all!! ;)

hugs,

Sweet Peas for a Summer Birthday

Hey there bloggers!! :)

This is a card made for an order from a friend of mum's for a 50th card for her Sister-in-Law. The brief was quite open in the design- 'she loves flowers'- but more specific in the wording. I find that most of the special occasion cards people request include combinations of greetings that you just wouldn't find in the shops, in this case 'For a Special Sister-in-Law' as well as the Happy 50th bit. Have to say, I've had far more complicated things requested and this actually didn't test my stamp collection or my patience nearly so badly as some!! ;) She also wanted the card to be pretty large and so I immediately thought of the one I made for my mum for Mother's Day last year and have essentially remade that design- just with a different focal image and some tweaking to fit in the requested wording:

It's a 10"x7" card blank. The decoupaged image is from a simply beautiful kit I got on sale from C&C/Ideal early last year- the images are the entire front of an almost 7"Sq. card, though in this case there was a border strip which I cut off. I covered the bottom half of the base with half of a purple pearlescent card blank which I stamped with some beautiful Agapanthus style Heidi Grace stamps- which I love to use so much :)- in Brilliance Moonlight White Ink :) The swirls are my equally loved and well used Heidi Grace ones- I have several sets and intermix them all so don't know which is from which!! :S - stamped in Brilliance Pearlescent Purple and embellished with Clear Stardust pen for extra oomph!! The greetings are stamped in Brilliance Purple again using Woodware's Mixed Greetings and Family Christmas clear sets with the '50th' coming from a SeeDs alphabet set I got for £1 recently- Whimsy, I think :)

I've taken lots of pics as, with all the different shiny/pearly bits I used, it was hard to get them to come out well so I focused on each bit at a time- hope you won't get too bored!!

The beautiful Sweet Pea decoupage with punched corners and silver mirri behind- got slightly carried away with the Stickles here but I love it being sooo sparkly!! :)

A close up on the pearl card with pearl ink- now this was hard to get a good pic of!! ;) The ribbon is Anita's- the knot ending up over the centre of the flower was a happy accident on mum's card last year but I decided it looked good that way so this time I had to attempt to get the stamp in the right place!!

The HG flourishes complete with Glittery accents :)

The first part of the greeting on an extra little piece of stamped purple card with a Nellie's rectangle of mirri again :)

The rest of the greeting!! Just had to mask off the words to separate them as they come joined together :)

I added and insert and stamped co-ordinating swirls on it and the envelope as, for and extra special card, I think it really finishes it off nicely :)

Are you still with me!?! Don't blame you if not (so much for trying to keep it brief again, less words but tons of photos to upload!! :S) but there are so many things on here that I love- from the topper to the beautiful pearl card and gorgeous stamps as well as the whole thing being in my most favourite colours- that I simply couldn't leave any of the shots out!! Plus, I think I was just so excited that this card came together so well and so much more easily than of late that I couldn't resist getting shots of everything!! I felt so good when I'd finished this card that the feeling's lasted since!! :) :) Makes a lovely change!! :) All that was left at this stage was to cross my fingers that she liked it and decide how much to charge for it- I always feel a little awkward on that front with orders but am coming round to asking a fair price which means more money to Ayme as well as to replace my materials with!! :)

You can probably tell I'm felling a little better than I was last time I posted- thank you for the lovely comments on my last post, they really helped to make me smile and feel better and I really appreciate them :) - so I'm going to attempt to enter this in some challenges this time!! :) I found quite a few so may regret it by the time I've got through linking them all up but here goes nothing!! I'd like to enter it in: One Stop Craft Challenge- A Splash of Colour- Pink, Blue, Green & a hint of Red (in the flower if you look closely, I promise!!) :) ; Crafty Catz- Summertime :) ; Wild Orchid Crafts- Say it with Flowers :) ; Craftalicious- Birthdays :) ; Allsorts- Summer Days (the sweet peas-summer flowers) :) ; Charisma Cardz- anything but a square (I hope my rectangle is interesting enough!! ;) ) :) ; and Stampavie and more- Anything Goes :)

Right, I'm off to link those up now (gulp!!) but now my crafty mojo's at least back in the vicinity (if not always right to hand when I need it most!!) I'll hopefully be back again soon- the next card on my list, which I started last night, is another order for a special birthday so better dig out those alphabet stamps again, I think!! :) Sorry I've still not managed much commenting on all the lovely cards you've posted again- hopefully will be feeling more upto it again soon!! :)

Hope you're all looking forward to a good weekend and thank you so much if you've actually had the patience to stay til the end of this post!! :D

hugs,

Memories...

Hi there!!

I'm back again, with my Dad's Father's Day card at last!! I've finally got a brief let up in the pace on the card-making front and my next one doesn't have to be ready til next Monday, hence the two posts in two days!! :) I wrote most of this last night while while my mum was glued to (actually trying to stay awake through, as it's so dull, but refusing to allow it to be turned off!) the football- there's been sport on in our house non-stop for weeks with football, tennis, racing, etc., etc.- I haven't even managed to see what was on the craft shows yesterday yet and I think I'm getting withdrawal symptoms!! ;) Still, I can't be tempted to spend money on stuff I've not seen, so I guess that's perhaps not such a bad thing!! ;)

Anyway, my Dad's card:

it's ended up being fairly minimal as I just decided it looked good and it'd be silly to go looking for other places to add things and probably ruin it in the process!! Besides, I think the simple clean lines suit a man's card- for my Dad anyway!! :)

I saw this fold for the first time here on Elaine's blog a week or so ago and knew straight away that I wanted to use it for my Dad's card- I'm not sure what it's proper name is or even if it has one but I've been thinking of it as a kind of 'upside down easel card'!! I had a card blank already scored for an easel card so I just turned it in the other way- very simple so far!! ;)

The decoupage is made from one of the character toppers from the Forever Friends Cd- my dad would fire up the barbeque at any opportunity when I was little so I thought of him straight away when I saw it! :) I sized the image in MCS to fit in my new Nellie Snellen rectangle die and copied it to make the extra layers, then cropped out the excess with the digital punch feature to save ink before printing. I layered it with the Nellie rectangle from silver linen textured cardstock, a gorgoues blue linen textured paper with it's corners rounded and a piece cut from a spare white card blank the same as the base, edging that and the decoupage piece with a swipe from a Brilliance Inkpad in Pearlescent Sky Blue to match the paper and give definition. Then I cut a circle of the silver card with nesties for the stopper and attatched that to the top of the blank with a decorative eyelet (from We R Memory Keepers) using my Cropodile. It was a bit tricky figurng out exactly where to position the topper on the front and then the eyelet but I think that's probably only because it was the first time I'd done it and I wanted to make sure I left space for the greeting!

The greeting was made in MCS again using the colour-picker to get the words the shade of blue in the bears apron. I traced over the wording with Sakura Clear Glaze pen, edged it with Blue ink and layered it on to the card with a strip of the blue paper and the attached a couple of Extra Large Snaps (also from We R Memory Keepers when I found loads of the on sale a few weeks back!) :) A panel edged with blue ink inside the card for a bit of interest finished it all off!

 

And a couple more close-ups! :) (I gone a bit mad with the photos on this one but it's mainly as I was having so much trouble getting any that looked good that in the end I took loads!! :S) I glazed the sausage after tracing the 'Dad' with Clear stardust :) I chose the Memories eyelet (which I've had for years since it came in the kit with my Cropodile but have been saving as they'd be so expensive to replace!!) as whenever I smell the unmistakable smell of charcoal and fire-lighters on the wind, I'm transported back to my childhood standing with my dad watching him getting the barbie going and cooking sausages and burgers galore!! Very happy memories!! :)

I've missed a few of the challenges I was going to enter this in having not managed to post it til now but there are still a few options, I think!! So, I'd like to enter it in these: Crafty Cardmakers- Cards For Men :) ; One Stop Craft Challenge- One for the Boys :) ; and Magical Crafts Challenge- Something for a Male/ Father's Day :)

Right, I shall go and link those up now!! Thanks for reading and for any comments!! :) Hope you're all enjoying the good weather and not melting too much!! :)

hugs,