Crafty Calendar #19

Hello everyone - back with my second post of the day, and this time it is to welcome you to the April challenge for Crafty Calendar. First of all apologies that I haven't managed to get all my commenting done for the past month as I have had quite a lot going on one way and another ... but i'll definitely try harder for April!!

This month it is Liz's turn to choose the challenge theme, and she has chosen

April Showers Bring Forth May Flowers

You can interpret this however you like so long as you submit a new piece of work and have a link from your blog to the Crafty Calendar Challenge.

We have a great prize on offer this month, which is from our sponsor Sentiments 4 You

... and it's a $10 voucher to spend in their online store - nice!

They very kindly provided some digi sentiments for the DT to play with - you can see them on my card and on several of the other DT ladies' gorgeous efforts.

Anyway, here is my card for this month's challenge - I focussed on the "flowers" rather than the "showers", and this image suggested itself to me straight away - not only is it very spring-like but also this particular flower got its shower from a watering can :-).

Recipe:

Main image: Sugar Nellie "Flowers" coloured with Promarkers;

Sentiment: Digi by Sentiments 4 You;

Paper: Papermania "Forever Friends - Springtime";

Supplies: cherry blossoms and pearls from Wild Orchid Crafts;

Tools: Martha Stewart "garden trellis" deep edge punch and "small monarch butterfly" punch; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch.

Challenges:

Sugar Bowl #56 - Sketch

Top Tip Tuesday #27 - Nature Inspired

Crafts and Me #28 - Use Yellow

Kaboodle #60 - Spring Has Sprung

Stamp Something - April Digi Day (digi sentiment)

Double Dutch #65 - Old, New, Borrowed & Blue

(stamp / paper pad / digi stamp supplied by Sentiments 4 You) / flowers)

Crafty Ann's #37 - Inspired by an Elvis Song

(It's a Wonderful World)

Hope you can join in this month's Crafty Calendar Challenge - have a great weekend!

Penny Black Challenge #117 - colour scheme

Saturday again already, so it must be time for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge! Thanks very much to everyone who got all loved up and joined in last week's challenge - fabulous entries as usual.

This week we have a colour scheme for you ... we would like to see your projects featuring predominantly the colours

purple, cream & brown

As always we look forward to seeing your interpretations - just remember you need to use either a Penny Black image, large sentiment or stickeroo as the main focus of your creation.

This week we have 2 fabulous prize stamps on offer to randomly drawn winners from our regular sponsor Penny Black

"Hedgie Gift"

"Join the Party".


Ooh I want to enter ! :-)

The rest of the DT have worked their PB magic so I do hope you will pop over to check them out. Here is my card for this week.


The starting point for this card was obviously the existence in my stash of a piece of purple, cream and brown paper by BasicGrey ... plus the overwhelming urge to use a burgundy/cream coloured rose that was winking at me from my collection. These 2 items suggested to me a kind of vintage theme, so before I knew it I had inked up my one and only non-Christmas vintage style PB stamp. I managed to resist the urge to use any glitter or sparkle on this card (unusual for me!!) as I didn't think they would look quite right with the vintage concept.

Now it's confession time ... I only narrowly avoided disaster with this project. I stamped out the image on a large-ish piece of card, and whilst taking a full hour to colour it in I kept idly scribbling strokes of several new Promarkers I had bought in honour of the occasion, on the side of the card ... or so I thought!! When it came to time to cut out the image I realised that my scribbles had encroached within the minimum boundaries for cutting out a rectangle... and I don't think this pic is condusive to cutting close the image. Eek!! All I will say is that thank goodness the sentiment looks right on the card where it is placed lol! (phew!)


Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Rain or Shine Friends" (312K) coloured with Promarkers and edges distressed with "Antique linen" distress ink;
Sentiment: Penny Black "...second self" (3386D);
Papers: BasicGrey "Wisteria";
Supplies: large rose and small roses from Hobbycraft; middle rose from Wild Orchid Crafts; lace from Bunny Zoe's Crafts; pearls from the Hobby House;
Tools: Martha Stewart "floral vine" deep edge punch; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch;

I would like to enter this card for

Penny Black at Allsorts (September) - Punch Away
Stampin' for the Weekend #46 - Shabby or Vintage
Dutch Dare #85 - Vintage Summer (2nd entry)
Bunny Zoe's #3 - Vintage

Simon Says - Pearls & Lace (2nd entry)
Ooh-La-La #61 - Elegant ladies
Belli Challenge #99 - Old Stamps

Double Dutch #51 - The Easy Challenge

(I have chosen previous Challenge#4 Pick & Choose with the techniques stamping, distressing and punching)

Have a great weekend and look forward to seeing your creations.

>

Gone Fishin'!

Today is my darling husband's birthday, and he is a keen fisherman, so I have been hoarding this cute "Dandelion Goes Fishing" stamp set since last summer especially so I could make this card lol!

I was always going to make this card regardless of any challenges, but it's always nice to find some challenges to enter .. and here are a few that I believe this card fits.

Creative Inspirations #29 - Male Card
Double Dutch #28 - Boys only

Crafty Catz #23 - Something for the boys
Crazy 4 Challenges #28 - masculine card

Stamp Something - Something Cream & Green
Fussy & Fancy #6 - Green
Pixie Cottage #11 - Green

All that Scraps - Green

For Fun #2 - Green
Too Cute For Words - Green

Raise the Bar #8 - Go Green
Penny's Paper Crafting Challenge - Going Green

Clearly Inspired #9 - Think Green
Inky Impressions #31 - Think Green

Cute Card Thursday #103 - Celebrations!
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #57 - Celebration!
Fun with Shapes & More #44 - Happy birthday!

Gingersnap #44 - Birthday Greeting
Die Cut Dreams #38 - No Flowers Allowed!

Pollycraft #35 - Distressing
Spoon Full of Sugar #94 - recycle (I have used buttons which were originally snipped from some garment or other!)
Secret Crafter #74 - Anything Goes
Ooh-la-la #49 - Anything Goes

Phew!! 23 challenges - a new record! not bad considering i didn't even consult a challenge list before I made this one ;-)

Here's a closeup of the cute fish charm I used - I also cut down a piece of raffia ribbon and stained it with distress ink, fondly imagining it might look like a piece of fishing net lol!

Recipe:
Main image: "Dandelion Goes Fishing" coloured wtih watercolour pencils, and edges of image distressed with "Antique linen" distress ink;
Sentiments: Hero Arts (main); "Dandelion Goes Fishing" (in corner);
Papers: K&Co - checked paper edges distressed using scissors;
Supplies: Hobbycraft raffia ribbon (stained wtih antique line distress ink); buttons, dewdrops, green ribbon and fish charm from my stash;
Tools: Fiskars paper cutter "deckle" blade.

Hope it will be a nice day for his birthday so we can have a little r&r :-)Hope you're all having a good weekend.

Creative Card Crew #44 - Valentine

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Creative Card Crew Challenge- my second as part of the DT. Wow what an amazing set of entries this past fortnight - there were a whole lot of punches flying and it was all in a good way :-). Don't forget to visit the challenge blog to see whether you have won last week's prize.

This week we have a challenge for you in keeping with the time of year ... yes, it's

Valentine

So it's time to get lovey-dovey, and see if you can be the lucky randomly picked winner of this week's fab prize which has been donated by

and is this adorable stamp.

So without further ado, here's my card.

I always struggle with Valentine's as my husband doesn't like the colour red, and I can hardly make him a card with pink hearts on it, can I lol!!??!! I already knew I was going to use this darling image which was an RAK from my fab friend Squirrel, and as I cast around amongst my papers I suddenly spotted this BG "Porcelain" sheet and decided to go for green with red accents ... like the green tree with li'l red hearts growing on it ...aww! I kept the card reasonably unfussy as it is for a man.

I would also like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Paper Sundaes #3 - Valentine
Lexi's Creations #6 - Valentine
Double Dutch #36 - Be My Valentine

Challenge Up Your Life #13 - Valentine with Hearts
Stampavie & More #79 - Love/Valentine

Magical Crafts #7 - Valentine
Sophisticats #20 - Love
Corrosive Challenges #49 - All You Need is Love
Creative Belli #83 - Hearts
Caardvarks - Red Hearts
Cupckake # 76 - 4 legged and furry. Now I know that hedgies are renowned for being a bit prickly, but I bet their tummies are furry lol!!
BasicGrey #12 - Animals (2nd entry - wow have they got a fab prize on offer this time :-) )

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle #25 - Open theme

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "T.L.C." (3924K)(RAK from Squirrel), coloured with watercolour pencils and Gelly Roll red sparkle pen;
Sentiment: computer generated using "Gina" font;
Paper: BasicGrey "Porcelain" (green); My Mind's Eye (red);
Supplies: Papermania silver heart gems;
Tools: Martha Stewart "lace scallop heart" punch; Fiskars paper trimmer "deckle" blade.

Look forward to seeing your romantic creations, and don't forget to check out the lovingly created cards form the rest of the DT.

Spring is multi-sprung!

I got down to business with making an Easter card the other evening, and decided to follow the fab sketch for the Double Dutch Challenge #14. This sketch really appealed to me as it demanded a number of papers, and I remembered that I have got a number of co-ordinating spring-like papers that came free with issue 1 of Creative Cardmaking magazine . I was also able to do something different with the 3 little dots on the sketch, as the magazine freebie included some cute matching die cut butterflies - I don't normally use these giveaways but those ones were rather better than the average imho.

I would also like to enter this card for a few other challenges - hence the title that spring is multi-sprung!

The Pink Elephant #8 - Easter

Lili of the Valley #24 - Easter

Created by Hand - Easter or Easter Eggs

Cute Card Thursday#54 - citrus colours

Here is a pic of the inside of the card, where I used another free diecut greeting from the magazine.

I used:

Stamps: Penny Black "Duckling" and "Happy Easter";

Colouring media: watercolour pencils;

Papers: all free with issue 1 of Creative Cardmaking magazine, inc. butterflies and inside greeting;

Supplies: ribbon and brad from my stash.