Lavender and Lace

What a lovely combination and just perfect for our little extra over at Daring Cardmakers this week.

Over the past few weeks the mid week dares have all been based around Anniversary gifts and this week is no exception. The Daring Cardmakers want us to make a card using Bronze, pottery, linen or lace, the modern and traditional gifts for the 8th Wedding Anniversary.

I didn’t have anything in mind when I started making this card but I’m pleased to say that what I’ve ended up with will be perfect for a wedding card that I needed at the end of the month.

For this one I decided to go with the ‘lace’ part of the brief but the card stock is embossed Linen effect which I also think could also count as part of the dare.



I started by stamping half of the card with a pretty little flower stamp. Sorry I can’t tell you who it’s made by because there’s no name on it. All I know is that it was part of a set I brought from QVC a few years ago. The stamping was done with VersaMark and then dusted over with Blonde Moments Sugar Dumpling Pearl Pigments.

The bottom half of the card has been covered with a patterned paper from a Brenda Walton book of designer papers and I’ve hidden the join with some White lace and added tiny seed beads for detail.
The central image is a stamp called My Mother’s Dress by Inkadinkado. It’s been stamped with Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink, matted onto some Mauve card and edged with the same White Lace. To finish the card I’ve added some paper flowers, metallic dimensional fabric paint, some glitter glue and a computer generated greeting.

My knight in shining armour

The challenge over at Papertake this week is to make a card using this template.

I decided to go with a Father’s day theme as it’s coming up in the next couple of weeks and I needed to get a few cards made to fill my basket in the local chemist.

Here's my card:

I’ve used Tanda’s Medievel Knights Set 1 for my images, stamped with VersaMark and heat embossed with fine detail Silver embossing powder.

There’s also some dry embossing in there too, as three of the mats have been through my Cuttlebug, using various embossing folders.

Long Time, No Challenge

Well, it's absolutely ages since I've had a go at a CPS template but yesterday while I was pushing paper and embellishments around my craft table looking for inspiration I suddenly remembered the templates that they come up with each week and headed straight over to their blog.

Here's this weeks template:

You'll notice that I've turned the template round sideways to do my card because it suited the imaged that I eventually decided to use.

This is what I came up with:

The first thing I did was to cover a DL card with Dusky Pink patterned paper from the English Paper Company. I then stamped the three images of the lady using one of the stamps from Tanda's Retro Women Set 2. Each one has been stamped in a different shade of Color Box, Fluid Chalk ink...........................you may have noticed that I use these a lot, well that's because I love the softness of the image that they produce. The colours are really fabby too!

Each of the images was matted onto Brown card and had the ribbon and brad added before being mounted onto the prepared card base. I then added the stamped greeting, which has also been matted onto Brown card.

I hope you like my effort.

Thanks for looking.

Papertake - Luscious Lime & Lilac

This morning I’ve been busy finishing off the inserts for a card order that I’ve been working on this week but I strayed slightly and got waylaid a bit. While blog hopping I came across Papertake, another blog with a weekly Monday challenge so I decided to have my first go at it.

Their challenge this week is to make a card with the colour combination of Luscious Lime and Lilac - or any shades of green and purple!

Here’s what I came up with

I used my Creative Memories Cutting System to cut the aperture in the card and make the frame. For the stamping I’ve used various Tapestry Stamps and Technique Tuesdays Whispy Gigs in a combination of Colur Box and Versa Magic Chalk Inks in shades of Green and Lavender.

To finish the card I’ve added a bit of sparkle with some Stickles and then finally added an Organza bow.

The Animals came in Two by Two

My heading is not strictly true, it should say two cards and three animals but that doesn’t have a ‘ring’ to it, does it.

This week there are two challenges which have to feature animals the first is over at Daring Cardmakers and the other is the Tanda Teaser, so while I had my animal stamps out I decided to give them both a go.

First is our DCM dare.

Hi everyone, it's my turn (Mel) to set the dare this week :)
I've based my dare on the book by Graeme Base called 'Animalia' (just because that book happened to be sitting near my desk when I realized it was my turn for the dare this week).
So, all you have to do is create a card featuring an animal.
I thought this would be a good opportunity to used the lovely set of stamps that in won in one of Sheila, Manic Stamper’s raffle’s on her blog a little while back

The two papers that I covered my card with are from DCWV ‘All Dressed Up’ stack and were a perfect match for the Zebra stamp that I’ve used. I stamped the image three times, using a mask as I stamped over the previous image and then tore and inked the edges with Black distress ink before attaching it to the card with four large Black brads.
The little round tags read ‘Go Wild’.
They were cut with a Cuttlebug die, inked with Black distress ink and the letters were stamped with my ‘Evolution’ magnetic stamp alphabet from Making Memories. I tied the tags to some Black Fibers down the side of the card and then finished it off with a computer generated greeting.

Next is the Tanda challenge.
I’ve never had a go at the Tanda Teaser’s before but I’ve decided to give it a bash.
Here’s the brief……..

This week's Tanda Teaser is called 'ZOOFARI'. We want to see cards with an animal on - anything you would find in a Zoo!
For this one I decided to go with my stamps, some chalks and a children’s stencil.

The stencil comes from a lovely little ‘Fun with Zoo Animals Stencils’ book.
I started by securing the stencil with low tack tape to the centre of the card and then, using various Tanda Inches stamps I stamped over the stencil randomly using Brown Staz-On. With the stencil still in place and using a cotton wool ball, I chalked over the stencil in shades of Yellow, Orange and Brown.
The border was created by first making a rectangle mask to cover the centre image. I then used an array of different stamps and coloured inks to stamp around the edges of the card and then, with the mat still in place I chalked over the stamped images.

I framed the centre image using some fibers and four large brads and finally added a stamped greeting.

Time Flies

I can’t believe that Tuesday is here again and it’s time for another Mid Week Little Extra from the team over at Daring Cardmakers.

Another Midweek challenge based on the traditional and modern gift lists for Wedding AnniversariesThis time we've chosen the 3rd Anniversary, so you have the choice ofPaper or Clocks to inspire your card making this week - which is nice and easy don't you think?Remember, your card doesn't have to be an anniversary card, it can be for any occasion, we're just using the themes for inspiration purposes!
I though that just going with the paper might be the easy root to take so I decided to have a stab at the clock.
There’s paper in there too obviously so I think I have it well and truly covered!


I started out with a Caramel coloured card and stamped some clock faces all over it to create a subtle background. The centre panel started life as plain Cream which I’ve sponged with Distressing Ink in three colours, Tattered Rose, Dried Marigold and a touch of Faded Jeans and then spritzed so the colours run into each other. Over the top of this I stamped some fine text using Penny Black’s Letter Background stamp and then some various travel related stamps from Clear Choice Stamps Journey Collection.

The clock face is also a Clear Choice stamp. I stamped this onto a strip of Cream card, added some faux stitching along the edges and then mounted it onto a strip of torn patterned paper and then onto the card and added a ribbon.
Finally I printed ‘Time to Travel on to some Vellum, using my computer, tore the edges and attached it to the card with two little brass brads.

Now that the dare out of the way I can tell you about my day yesterday.
I went to see my pal Lythan and we had fun playing with our crafty toys, having a good old natter and we had lunch in the garden, it was really fab.

We did actually make a few cards too. Here's what I managed to make.

A Bit of a Magpie

I have to own up and face the fact that I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to card making. I see things and think to myself, “I could use that on one of my cards” and it duly goes in a box of bit and bobs awaiting the day that I recycle it. This is especially true when it comes to embellishments on shop brought cards and before I know where I am I’m cannibalizing them.

The challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week gave me the perfect opportunity to rummage through my box because they want us to make a card recycling an embellishment or paper from a shop brought card, gift bag or wrapping paper.

I decided to go with one of my 50th birthday cards that’s been sitting in the box for 18 months and had a lovely little present on it that was just crying out to be re-used at some point.

This is what it looked like before

and here it is now


I cut a 14.5cm square card and added some panels of Basic Grey Colour Me Silly that have been inked on the edges and then doodled with Black pen. I stamped some swirls onto the largest of the panels with Technique Tuesday's Whispy Gigs stamps and a Orange Ink It Up pad.

I have to say, this is not my usual style but I was so inspired by the card that Lythan made for her AD-dicted dare that I had to give it a go.

The birthday present is the recycled element from the 50th card and I’ve added a stamped birthday greeting using Black Staz-On and my Blonde Moments Sweet Celebrations stamps and finished it off by adding some little buttons, brads and gems for my stash.

DCM - Little Extra - Wood or Silverware

I can’t believe that it’s been two week since I last posted.

I’ve been laid up with an acute case of very painful sinusitis which turned into a nasty chest infection and felt so rough that I’ve not been in the mood crafting in any shape of form, not even my cross stitch. I’m pleased to say that I’ve over it now though; well, apart from the cough which is still hanging around but I thought it was about time to get the ribbons and papers out again!

The Daring Cardmakers are doing another challenge in the series of Anniversary gifts that they started a couple of weeks ago and this weeks Little Extra is to make a card featuring either the traditional gift of wood or the modern gift of Silverware for the 5th Anniversary.

While I was wondering what on earth I was going to do I remembered that I had some lovely little shaped wooden buttons that I brought at Ally Pally last year and had never used so I pulled them out.

It turned out to be very simple. I covered the card blank with the patterned paper and cut the scalloped border by hand after using a stencil that came free with one of the card making magazines. I coloured the buttons with Gel pens

and also added a little bit of doodling to the borders and then finished the whole thing off with a little tag and some ribbon

Ingredients

Patterned papers – DCWV – All Dressed Up stack, K&Co – Hopscotch Designer Mat Pad.
Organza ribbon – from stash
Wooden buttons –from stash
Large brad – from stash
Sakura Gelly Roll pens
Tag Whale of a Punch
Blond Moments Sweet Celebrations unmounted stamps.

DCM - Wool or Copper

It’s Tuesday, It’s 10am (well more like 6pm in my case) and it’s time for another mid week Little Extra from the Daring Cardmakers

In the coming weeks all the mid week dares are going to be based around the theme of traditional anniversary presents but don’t expect them to start at the 1st anniversary and run in sequence….oh no……the team are far more cunning than that!

We have decided that each mid week dare will be picked randomly and the first will be 'The 7th Anniversary'

We’d like you to make a card inspired by the Traditional or Modern gift themefor a 7th Anniversary, which is……'Wool or Copper'

My first instinct was to get the knitting needles out but I decided against that….I’ve not knitted for years. Then I had a vague recollection that I had some copper foil hidden away somewhere in my stash. I don’t think it’s seen the light of day since the Crafts By Carolyn meet up in Hitchin about three years ago so I guess it’s time I made use of some of it don’t you think?
It was at Hitchin that I gave a little demonstration to the girls on how to dry emboss on this thin metal foil using brass stencils but now it’s so much quicker with the help of my Cuttlebug and some embossing folders.

So, here’s what I came up with for the challenge.

I started off by covering an A5 card with two of the beautiful pearlized coordinating papers from the DCWV Luxury stack. Each corner was stamped with a flourish using my new set of Technique Tuesday, Whispy Gigs clear stamps..(Did I not tell you about these?) and a Brown Staz-On ink pad. I then made a smaller mat in the same papers but turned them around so that different papers would lie on top of one another.

Next the Copper Foil embellishments………I cut three squares of the foil and run them through one of my small embossing folders making sure that the pattern was centralized. Each of these was then mounted onto another piece of the patterned paper and embellished with layered flowers comprising of a selection of fabric blooms, Prima’s and some copper metal embossed flowers that have been cut with punches. They were all finally fastened together with brads, some of which I coloured with alcohol inks so they would match the colour scheme.

The card was finished off with Organza ribbons and a stamped greeting which was made using Blond Moments Sweet Celebrations unmounted stamps.

Hot 'n' Spicy

There’s a ‘Hot ‘n’ Spicy’ team challenge over at the Daring Cardmakers blog today and I had to make a card with that phrase in mind.

I thought the best starting point for this would be go through my ever growing stash of papers to find something that would fit with the theme.
Luckily I came across a sheet of stripy paper from Li’l Davis Designs that was a freebie at a crop I went to last summer and it fitted the ‘Hot ‘n’ Spicy’ theme to a tee.

My card is pretty basic…………..just layering the patterned paper and Burgundy card stock together and topped off with a stamped panel.

As I was putting my card together with the eyelets and ribbon it seemed to be lacking something, so I decided to run one of the panels through my Cuttlebug and emboss it with ‘Stylized Flowers’, which gave it the little lift it needed.

The rubber stamp is ‘Brush Tulips from Penny Black…..I love these water colour effect flower stamps and has a nice little collection of them now!

Lythan's Doodling!

There’s something a little different going on at the Daring Cardmakers for their mid week Little Extra this week. Lythan has written a great tutorial about doodling with patterned papers.

It's a technique that she uses a lot and her cards always look so fabby but I’m not sure that doodling is really my thing.

I'm not even sure that it would suite my card making style but I’ve given it a go.

Ummm……totally different from my usual creations but I’m quite pleased with the results.

I’m not sure who the papers were by because they were in a Self Addressed kit from many moons ago but I do know that the ‘Happy Birthday’ stamp is a Blonde Moments one from their Sweet Celebrations set.

Thanks for dropping by.

Sue
x x x

Butterfly, Flutterby

I was still playing with Parchment paper when I made my card for the Daring Cardmakers dare this week.

Butterfly, Flutterby

Hi everyone, Jo here with this week's dare....
I seem to like butterflies at the mo. This week therefore I would like you to put some butterflies on cards. Stitched, felt, shiny, bright, plain, paper pieced, stamped, drawn... you get the idea :) any theme of card but it must have a butterfly somewhere on the card!

I decided to go with a card design that I’ve made several times before, mainly because I love this particular stencil. It’s by a lady called Erica Fortgens and combines embossing and stitchinG

I started by dry embossing the panel onto some thick, good quality parchment paper. You can emboss brass stencils perfectly well with a lot of the die cutting machines out there but it doesn’t work on this stencil because it has butterflies in two of the corners and birds in the other two. I wanted the butterflies in all four corners so it meant that the embossing had to be done the conventional way.
Once all the embossing was finished I took a needle, pierced all the holes and stitched the edging of the oval and the butterflies with fine gold thread and added small pearls for the butterflies bodies.
The three tags were printed onto Parchment paper on my computer and then embossed with gold embossing powder but you have to be really quick to do. If your not, the ink dries and the embossing powder won’t stick to it. The two name tags were cut using a ‘Whale of a Punch’ and the other was cut by hand and then all three were mounted on a slightly larger tag cut from pearlescent card, also by hand.

Finally, the whole thing was assembled onto an ivory pearlescent card using tiny gold brads and ivory ribbons.

Sectret Cross Stitch Project

I've been working on that secret cross stitch project that I mentioned the other day.
I still can't tell you who it's for but here's a sneak peek.



My progress is being hindered ever so slightly because my beloved BoJangles, who likes to sit with me decided that my sewing basket looked like a comfortable place to rest his weary head. Needless to say, I couldn't get to my embroidery silks.



I'm just amazed that he managed to get completely in there!

DCM - We've Folded!

Once again the weekend has flown by and I’m pleased to say that I survived the family coming to dinner on Sunday. Not a big deal cooking for six you would think but when you’re only used to cooking for one it’s a bit different. I think it went well and everyone enjoyed the food…well all except the Pavlova that didn’t happen.
I followed Delia’s instructions to the letter, cooked it for 1 hour on gas mark one then turned it off and left it in the over overnight to cool but when I tried to put it on the serving plate the following morning the inside was just a gungy mess and not in the least edible. We ended up having just Strawberries and cream!


Anyway, with the cooking disaster out of the way it was time for me to make my card for this weeks Little Extra over at the Daring Cardmakers

This weeks mid week dare is inspired by Rachel and is called ‘Folded’!
This is not folds in the card blank itself, but rather folds ON the card- whether it be some kind of paper folding technique or folded embellishments or even just a folded over message of some type.

I decided on a square card covered with ‘dream’ paper and topped with a hand cut Lacé square which was folded back on it’s self to reveal the back of the double sided paper and the backing paper.
The next thing I needed to do was make the folded flower with the aid for my ‘Pretty Petals’ design template. I chose to make the Amaryllis from White parchment paper and to do that I needed to cut five of the petals and one centre.

I then decorated each petal with embossing and pricking, using Pergamano techniques and then folded and assembled the flower with a large Brown brad. I printed the two Happy Birthday tags, cut them with my Cuttlebug and attached them to the card with some Pink fibres.

The components were:-

Papers – My Mind’s Eye, Trés Jolie & HOTP Earth Tones Cardmakers Creative Pack
Parchment Paper - Canson
Cuttlebug Mini Tag Die
Dovecraft – Pretty Petals Design Template
Fibres and Brads from my stash

Shrink To Fit

Where on earth has the week gone again?
I can’t believe it’s Friday already and that means it’s time for another Daring Cardmakers challenge.

It was Kathy’s turn to set the dare this week and boy did she come up with one to stretch your imagination. She called it ‘Shrink to Fit’ and the idea is to have lots of unused space on your card and an embellishment that measures no more that 5 x 5 cm…have you any idea just how small that is!

This was real problem for me because most of the cards I make are A5 size and a 5 x 5 embellishment would look really silly on a card that size, so for this challenge I’ve scaled things down a bit and made my card 14.5cm square.

I started off by printing the computer generated greeting and then cut a 5cm square in the centre of the card. I edged around it with a silver metallic pen and then did a bit of weaving with some Lavender and Blue ‘Papillon’ Craft Yarn that I brought from Craft Creations.

So there you have it, a card with a small embellishment and lots of white space……just what Kathy ordered!

I've also been given an award this week.

The lovely Jackie has given me an Arte Y Pico award which is apparently given to people who share their creativity through their blogs. Other than the fact that it’s Spanish no one seems to know what Arte Yico actually means, so if anyone can shed any light I would be grateful. Anyway, I feel very honoured Jackie, so thank you so much for thinking of me. Now apparently I have to pass it on to five more people, so here goes…..

Juliet
Judy
Vanessa
Kathy
Lythan



All of these girlies have more talent in their little fingers that I can ever hope to achieve. I love reading their blogs because they give me so much inspiration and in Lythan’s case she more often that not brings a smile to my face.

Cross Stitch Friendship Quilt

You'll remember the other day when I was dropping hints about a secret project that I had been working on; well it’s reached its destination now so it’s safe for me to share it with you.

My good friend Nicki (who lives in Switzerland) and I have been working on a few stitching projects for charity over the last year or so. It’s a fun and very worth while thing to do but we decided it would be lovely to stitch something for someone we knew for a change and it didn’t take us long to decide that we wanted to do something for our very special friend Sharon who also helps stitch our charity projects.
So, it was back in December that I started going through all my cross stitch magazines looking for designs that I could stitch for this very special project. I eventually came across a set of Japanese inspired flowers in shades of Lavender and Pink and knew instantly that Sharon would love then.











When all nine squares were finally stitches I sent them over to Nicki so she could do her magic with her sewing machine. She did a fantastic job matching my little squares with some really beautiful fabrics and turned them into this amazing quilt.





Now, I know that Sharon occasionally reads my blog so I really hope she won’t mind me explaining the reasons we decided to make our special gift for her. You see, Sharon suffers from ME and that means that she needs lots of rest and often has to take naps during the day. Nicki and I thought that a quilt to snuggle up to would give her some comfort and remind her that she has some friends out there who are thinking about her and wishing her well.

Our next special project is already in the planning stage and all three of us will be working on it so keep an eye out on here for some piccies when it's finished.