Let it Snow!

Hi everyone. 

Today I had a sudden and unexpected urge to get started with some Christmas cardmaking. I have already made one Chrimbo card this year but that involved using a coloured image that I found in my stash; so this was the first one I made completely from scratch for 2021. 

My first task was to have a bit of a look in my sash to remind myself of what I've got ... that is one of the pleasures of coming back to cardmaking after so long hardly doing any. I found an absolutely fabulous old LotV paper pad featuring snowflakes in funky colours, so that formed the basis of today's card.

This cute Penny Black image is one that I have had for years and don't use very often, but it looks so joyful it just put me in the mood.  My colouring still needs practice, but I guess the only way to get batter is by keeping on trying!

Stamps: image - Penny Black "Let it Snow"(1524K); sentiment - Make Your Mark;

Media: Promarkers and Flexmarkers, Copics (fur); snow decorated with glamour dust;

Papers: LotV "Frozen Snowflakes";

Tools: Martha Stewart “Snow Flurry” Punch Around the Page; Whimsy "Winter’s Jewel 1” large snowflake die; smaller snowflakes - unknown.

Challenges I would like to enter:

Addicted To Stamps and More #412 - Christmas

Allsorts #637/638 - Add Some Sparkle (3rd entry)

Christmas Craft Creations (August) - Non-traditional Colours

Christmas With the Cuties #52 - Anything Cute & Christmassy

I ♥ Promarkers #442 - Anything Goes with option of more than one layer - WINNER

Incy Wincy - Use a Card  Tutorial and/or Animals (2nd entry)

Penny Black Saturday Challenge (August) - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Anything Goes

The Holly and Ivy #100 - Anything Christmas Goes

So ... that's 2 Christmas cards down, quite a lot still to go ... guess I'd better get busy!

'Til next time, take care and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,

Magic and Sparkle!

Today is one of my good friend's  birthday, so here is the card I made for her using the second adorable dragon digi image that I recently won as a challenge prize from Lee Holland Art.  

I have to say that I am totally in love with this range of images, to the extent that I have now followed Lee's site and thus got a free dragon Christmas image to play with - whoop whoop!! .. so you'll have to watch this space for that one which I''m sure will be coming soon!

I have also recently signed up for my first colouring class with the lovely Kit & Clowder, as I was lucky enough to receive a voucher for my birthday. I selected a detailed techniques class (colouring skin and hair) and I'm still at very early days with that, but I have already popped a couple of extra classes into my online basket including one to colour a Lee Holland dragon painting a rainbow!  I think that will be an autumn project for me, but it will be interesting to see how my colouring of dragons  changes as I get that class done.

This card involves a lot of sparkle on both the glitter card borders and the flower; and as it was a sunny day yesterday I was for once able to capture it pretty well in my photos. 

Stamps: Lee Holland "dragon with birthday cake" (digi); sentiment - unknown;

Media: Promarkers and Flexmarkers;

Papers: LotV Nitwits Collection - "Perfect Pair";

Tools: Spellbinders Nestabilities  - Fleur de Lis Squares; Marianne Design Creatables - LR0110 (flower and swirls)

Challenges I would like to enter:

A Gem of a Challenge #17 - Anything Goes (2nd entry). - TOP 5

Allsorts #637/638 - Add Some Sparkle (2nd entry)

Crafter's Cafe #272 - Fantasy

Crafty Animals #53 - Anything Goes With an Animal - TOP PICK

Crafty Sentiments - Anything Goes

Creative Knockouts #415 - Birthday Wishes

Cute Card Thursday #691 - Anything Goes (4th entry)

Penny's Challenge #503 - Anything Goes With Paper (3rd entry)

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Add A Sentiment

We Love Chocolate Baroque (August) - Favourite Stamps 

(at the moment I am just in love with these dragons!)

That's all from me for today. Hope you're having a nice evening, and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,

Silver Wedding

2 special friends of mine are celebrating their silver wedding anniversary next week, so I just had to make them a special card to celebrate. I wouldn't normally post such an occasion card before the actual date, but I asked permission from my friend so I could enter it into a couple of current online challenges which offer lovely prizes, and she said she was fine with it and promised not to peek!!

So here it is...

I veered away from my usual cute style, and decided to go for something simple and understated but (hopefully) stylish. It is an 8" * 8" card so plenty of room for my impact dies which I don't use very often. 

The whole thing consists of die cuts using mirri card mounted on white sparkly background paper, with the only hint of colour being a little chalking on the embossed butterfly wings.  In reality this card is very white and silver and very sparkly, but for some reason it was really difficult to capture this in photos - even when Ii tweaked the brightness etc. 

Dies: Memory Box "Bella Bouquet" ; Provo Craft Cut & Emboss "Butterflies"; Spellbinders Nestabilities "Decorative Labels Eight"; Tattered Lace "Alphabet Retro" (sentiment); Provo Craft "Hippie Chick" (numbers);

Paper, gems and ribbon from my stash.

Challenges I would like to enter:

A Gem of a Challenge #17 - Anything Goes

Allsorts #637/638 - Add Some Sparkle

Crafty Creations #424 - Anything Goes (3rd entry)

Penny's Challenge #503 - Anything Goes With Paper (2nd entry)

Simon Says (Monday) - Dry Emboss

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Add A Sentiment (2nd entry)

Sparkles #143 - Monochromatic

Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Time for dinner now, but I'll be back before too long with another card I made yesterday ... I'll just say it will involve another cute dragon!  Hope you are enjoying your weekend whatever you're doing.

Hugs,

Summer flowers

Today I have a fairly simple card to show you ... I needed a birthday card to put in the post, and found an image in my stash which I stamped and coloured many moons ago .... so that was the basis for my card and it all went from there!

I thought with my image already stamped and coloured this would be a quick card but I was sadly mistaken ... it seems to take forever to get set up, find the papers and embellishments I want, decide what to do ... and today it was exacerbated because I couldn't remember how to use my Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page so had to look up the correct paper sizes!! it all came together in the end though after a few failed attempts with the punch!

I have also found my old watermark signature, and spent a bit of time looking up and experimenting with how to put it on my photos as that memory was well lost in the mists of time ... but I seem to have got there!

Stamps: Main image - LotV; Sentiment- Penny Black clear set "Salutations"; tag sentiments - LotV "tiny tags";

Media: Promarkers and Flexmarkers;

Tools: Tattered Lace "Cute Critters" dragonfly die; Martha Stewart “Wildflowers” Punch Around the Page;

Paper, ribbon and gems from my stash.

Challenges I would like to enter:

Corrosive #8 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Crafty Calendar (August) - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Crafty Creations #424 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Cute Card Thursday #691 - Anything Goes (3rd entry)

Incy Wincy - Card Tutorial and/or animal 

(I chose the easy option of an animal!)

Moving Along With The Times #133 - Summer Fun or Summer Colours (yellow/orange)

Passion For Markers #605 - Add A Tag - TOP 5

Penny's Challenge #503 - Anything Goes with paper

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Add A Sentiment

Sweet Stampin' - Feature an Animal

Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

That's all for today, have a nice weekend and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,

Summertime Blues

I needed to make a birthday card for a friend, so I decided to take my primary inspiration from this week’s Simon Says (Wednesday) Challenge - "Summertime Blues". Having decided on a colour scheme I had a dig around to find some suitable papers that were both summery and blue, and then searched for an image to suit the papers … rather the opposite way round from my usual method which normally starts with an image.

 

Here’s the result. 

I love this cute image which I have had forever but I don’t think I have actually inked until now. It was quite difficult to colour but I’m a fairly pleased with how it turned out.

I’m also trying to reach out dies I’ve not used for a long time, such as this gorgeous butterfly and scrolling foliage. 

A couple of years ago when I was last into crafting I bought a special storage case for my dies to store them on magnetic sheets but didn't label them! However lately I got to thinking  I was sure I had stored all the packaging in the loft somewhere so that I could create an inventory of what was in the case later .... and my dear husband had a look at the weekend and found a large carrier bag full - happy days!! So now I will be able to put together an inventory and mostly know what I'm actually using!

Stamp: Fizzy Moon “Celebrations”;

Sentiment: LotV - Art pad No. 8;

Media: Promarkers and Flexmarkers;

Paper: LotV Nitwits “Petal Fresh”;

Tools: Spellbinders nestabilities; Magnolia Doohickey "Swirly butterfly" and "Heart Swirl Branch"; Cheery Lynn Designs "Fanciful Flourish";

Supplies: Flowers by Wild Orchid Crafts; ribbon and lace from my stash.

Challenges I would like to enter:

A Gem of a Challenge #16 - Anything Goes

Allsorts #635/636 - Anything Goes with option of roses - mine are on the lace 

Corrosive Challenge #8 - Anything Goes

Crafty Creations #424 - Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday #691 - Anything Goes

Happy Little Stampers (August) - Anything Goes With Dies

Incy Wincy - Summer / beach and/or Animals

Seize the Birthday #220 - Stripes

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Summertime Blues

Stamping Sensations (August) - Any Celebration 

Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

After a mammoth crafting session yesterday I’ll be having a day off today to let my back recover from sitting for hours on a hard dining room chair!! Thanks very much for visiting. 

Hugs,

Countdown to Christmas!

As I'm now not working and am trying to get back into cardmaking, I have decided to try to make some Christmas cards this year ... up until about 2015 I had made all my cards for several years, but then it all kind of drifted away! 

I have signed up for an online colouring class which I'm hoping to get started on in the next week (as soon as I can stock up on stamping card!!) but in the meantime I found a few coloured images when I was rooting in my stash, so here is my first Christmas card of 2021 - the countdown begins!

As I have made only a handful of Christmas cards over the past few years I am determined to try to make use of the stash I have already - particularly stamps (who knows how long that resolution will last)?

I noticed a bit of Promarker bleed ing on the post box which i did my best to repair with some Stickles glitter glue ... it doesn't actually look nearly as bad in real life as on a blown up photo!!

Stamps: Penny Black "Royal Mail" (3766J); LotV "Circular Christmas Sentiments";

Media: Promarkers;

Papers: LotV Nitwits "Festive Trimmings";

Flowers and ribbon from my stash.

Challenges I would like to enter:

ABC Christmas Challenge - P, Q, R 

(R is for Ribbon)

Addicted to Stamps & More #411 - Make Your Mark

Christmas Cards All Year Round (August) - Something that starts with "O" or "P" 

(P is for Postbox and Poinsetta)

Christmas Craft Creations (July) - Anything Christmas Goes

Crafty Calendar (August) - Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday #691 - Anything Goes

Double D Challenge - Mason Jar 

(Use a mason jar or anything in the jars on mood board - I used a red poinsetta)

Jingle Belles - Red and Green All Over

Passion for Markers #604 - Christmas in August

Penny Black Saturday Challenge (August) - Anything Goes 

(option of interactive not taken up)

We Love Chocolate Baroque (August) - Favourite Stamps:

(As I said in my previous post this is a really difficult one ... but Penny  Black were the stamps that first got me into stamping and at one time were almost all I ever used. Although things may have moved on since then they'll always hold a place in my heart)

I'm off to make a friend's birthday card now so I'll be back soon.

Hugs,

Magical dragon

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to win the Cutie Pie Challenge, and my prize was 2 digi images from Lee Holland Art

I have to confess that although I have a few digi images I have rarely used them up to now as I’m not overly familiar with how to resize them etc., but having won a couple I thought I’d give it a go. Lee has lots of fab images in his online shop so it was pretty difficult to pick 2; but I was particularly drawn to his images of cute dragons, primarily as they are quite different from anything else I’ve seen.

So here is a birthday card for a friend that I needed to make straight away, using one of the images.

What is not to love about this cute baby dragon?? ❤️ I’m also a big lover of butterflies so this image ticked all the boxes for me. I wasn’t too sure how to colour him so I’m not altogether confident about that, but I did my best and had a lot of fun. 

I am also starting to look through my stash and reacquaint myself with what I’ve got after three years of doing very little cardmaking … including absolutely loads of dies!! I rooted out these fabulous Magnolia Doohickey flowers which haven’t been used in toooo long!

The card is actually pretty sparkly, but the light wasn’t too great when I was taking photos so the pics don’t fully capture that. 

Stamps: Lee Holland Art - “Dragon with butterfly”; sentiment free with Simply Card and Papercraft magazine ;

Media: Promarkers and Flexmarkers;

Tools: Spellbinders dies and Magnolia Doohickey “doily flowers” dies;

Paper, gems and ribbon from my stash.

Challenges I would like to enter:

A Bit More Time to Craft #143 - Anything Goes

A Gem of a Challenge #16 - Anything Goes

Alphabet Challenge - I is for insects

Cute Card Thursday #690 - Anything Goes with optional theme of summer

Passion for Markers #603 - Favourite Colours 

(I definitely love pastels, and think lilac and green work very well together)

Simon Says (Monday) - Birthday Celebration

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Anything Goes

Stamping Sensations (August) - Any Celebration 

Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

We Love Chocolate Baroque (August) - Favourite Stamps 

(that is a really difficult one as I love lots of stamps … but I do tend to love stamps that a feature cute animal gazing at a butterfly, and this cute dragon has got to be my new favourite (for now!!))

That’s me done for today. Thanks for visiting. 

Hugs,

 

Old Crock!

Here is a large (8*8) but fairly simple card I made for a friend’s milestone birthday, which actually happened last year during first lockdown so sadly we couldn’t all celebrate together. It was also during the period when I wasn’t blogging so hasn’t been published on here before.

This vintage car stamp (“Old Crock”!) holds fond memories as I first used it to make an 80th birthday card for my dear late dad back in 2008 (which was also the subject of my first ever post on this blog!!) so I thought it would be good to give it another outing for another “vintage” milestone!!

Stamps: Butterfly Kisses “Old Crock”; Penny Black4071F “Flourish Birthday”; Lili of the Valley “Everyday Grungy Sentiments”;

Media: Promarkers;

Tools: Spellbinders nest abilities (frame); Provo Craft “Hippie Chick” number dies;

Papers and embellishments from my stash.

Challenges I would like to enter:

A Gem of a Challenge #16 - Anything Goes

Crafter’s Cafe #271 - Anything Goes

Crafty Hazelnut (August) - Anything Goes With Patterned Paper

I ❤️ Promarkers #440 - Anything Goes - TOP 3

Love To Scrap #148 - Old School

Penny’s Challenge #501 - Anything Goes With Paper

Seize the Birthday #219 - Anything Birthday Goes with optional theme of Travel

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Anything Goes

Stamping Sensations (August) - Any Celebration

Sweet Stampin’ - Gingham, Tartan and Plaid - TOP 3

Thanks for visiting.

Hugs,