A little cutie!

This week's Creative Card Crew Challenge #11 is shape it - ie. make an unusual shaped card. This is rather outside my comfort zone and not something I do very often, but I fancied a change (and I must confess I could also fancy the fab prize of 2 WOJ stamps that is on offer this week :-) )

I have previously made a circle card using my X-Cut Shapecutter system, and have read about people making small circular cards with their nesties ... so it struck me that I could follow the same principle with my new Peony nesties. As well as creating an unusual shaped card, the peony shape also has the beauty of standing up easily without "rolling".

The card itself is very simple, not least of all because it is so dinky in size that there is not a lot of space to play with! I stamped the PB image "A tender hug" then watercoloured it and decorated it with a few Papermania gemstones. I then cut both the image and a piece of patterned paper using my nested peonies, and inked all the edges with blue Colorbox Q pigment ink. I finished off the card very simply with a couple of diecut butterflies and a heart which matched my paper - (all were free in issue 1 of Creative Cardmaking magazine), and just found enough room for a Cuttlebug diecut greeting.

The inside of the card is very small, but I managed to use up another co-ordinating diecut from the magazine which I thought fitted quite nicely!

I have also found another new challenge blog called Fun with Shapes and More, which requires the use of something cut with either a punch or diecutting system ... and this week Challenge #3 is flowers .... so I hope that a hedgie holding flowers sitting on floral paper and a diecut peony will cover that lol!

Finally, I just spotted that this week's Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge #32 is butterflies and hearts - ideally using the CB butterflies and hearts cut'n' mboss combo die, but otherwise any dies you have to hand. Well I did cut my sentiment using a Cuttlebug cut'n'emboss die and the card does have diecut butterflies and flowers ... so I hope it qualifies !

Penny Black Saturday Challenge #25 - No patterned paper

Well it's the weekend already, so time once more for this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Many thanks to everyone who joined in last week ... I tried to get round to visit you all and loved seeing everyone's funky Christmas creations. Don't forget to pop along to the challenge blog to find out who has won the gorgeous Sarah Kay stamps that were on offer as last week's prize.

Without further ado, this week's challenge is no patterned paper - so everyone can continue to stroke their paper stash instead of cutting into it, whist we look forward to seeing all your creations with whatever other forms of decoration your imagination can come up with :-) be sure to pop over to the blog to check out the other DT sample cards - they are a fantastic source of inspiration!

This week we have another gorgeous prize up for grabs .... Tracie has donated a gorgeous embellishment kit from Poppicrafts.

Here is the card I have made: I stamped PB stamp "Fantasy" onto lilac cardstock and embossed using snowflake tinsel embossing powder (white with lots of silver sparkle). I decorated the tree with Papermania translucent gemstones and Cardology white pearls, and matted onto white pearlescent card using my nesties. The sentiment is also stamped and embossed with snowflake tinsel powder, and is from "Make Your Mark" (a one off shop in York). I embossed a piece of lilac pearlescent cardstock with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and then wrapped it with sparkly snowflake ribbon from my stash, which I also used to tie a bow. I finished off with small Cuttlebug snowflakes diecut from white glitter card, decorated with lilac gemstones.

Hope you like it, and have a good weekend.

Sketch Saturday #24 - friend's birthday card

I was struggling a little bit with loss of mojo tonight, but I needed to make a card for my good friend Clare's birthday. After a lot of faffing around and cutting up and discarding bits of paper, I finally settled on using my yummy new Imaginisce double sided papers in such a way as to fulfil this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge, which was a great one to work with - I rotated it 90 degrees to the right.

Main image: Penny Black "Crossing Bridges!"
Sentiment: Penny Black "To You" (partially masked)Papers: Imaginisce
Flowers: making Memories & Prima
Sparkly gems: Papermania
Sparkly brads; Doodlebug sugar coated (blue) and Making Memories (pink).

High Hopes of a Secret Crafter

I recently received some adorable and unusual cute images of Inca "snow ladies" from Margaret (Arum Lily) at Docrafts; and have been waiting eagerly for an opportunity to use them. When I saw the Secret Crafter Challenge #5 this week was to use a fabby sketch and the colours pink, brown and white, I thought the time had come ... all I needed was some pink Christmas paper! Luckily I spotted some gorgeous Bo Bunny papers in my local craft shop at the weekend, so I was all set! You will notice that I have rather distorted the proportions of the sketch but hope you can still see the basic shape ... I was just sooo determined to use this image LOL!

I would also like to enter this card for this week's High Hopes Challenge #6, which is to make a holiday card in non-traditional colours ... well I hope you'll agree pink is non-traditional.

I also realised pretty last minute that this card is also suitable (I hope) for this week's Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge #23, which is sparkle and bling .. so I would draw your attention to the glitter card and gems LOL !

Last but not least, almost at exactly the same time I'm posting this I notice that this week's PTW Challenge is Simply Sparkling .... how could I resist?

I used: main image is Inca "Snow Lady", coloured with watercolour pencils; sentiment by Stamp Away; white gltter card embossed using Cuttlebug Snowflake folder; white felt ribbon by Papermania; pink and brown gems by Paper Studio.

1st DT card for the Penny Black Challenge

Well, I'm still bouncing around with excitement from being picked for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge DT, but managed to steady my hands for long enough to make my first "semi-official" DT card in advance of joining properly next week. The theme for this week's challenge #21 is sparkly/fireworks .... now I only found this out at the same time as non-DT members so needed to make the best of what came to hand, which unfortunately ruled out a firework theme. But when I spotted the term "sparkly" I thought .. now we're talking LOL!! So here is a (very) sparkly Christmas card made using only items I'd got around the house... hope you like it !

I used:

Main image is Penny Black "Xmouse ornament", watercoloured and the snowflake glittered with a Stickle.

Sentiment is PB "A wish.." inked with Brilliance pearlescent ink.

2 co-ordinating pearlescent background papers are by Reminisce - the main patterned one has white and turquoise sparkly accents.

Image and sentinent are matted onto turquoise shimmery iridescent card and white glitter card cut with nesties.

Sparkly fluffy yarn is by Cardology.

Gems are by Papermania (silver), Paper Studio (green) and free with craft mag (blue).

Three challenges in one

I'm in luck! I saw this morning that this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge is "Down on the Farm" ... I don't own any stamps of pigs, cows or geese, but this week Evelyn C from Docrafts sent me a monthly friendship card which kindly included a lot of lovely stamped images .... including a PB cow!! So I was champing at the bit (or should that be chewing the cud??) and thought I would incorporate a couple of other challenges, namely Papertake Weekly - Katharina's Sketch #7, and a non-blog challenge I do over on Docrafts entitled "C for clashing colours!!" The flowers actually look the same deep pink as the ribbon and card in real life!

Anyway ... I used: Penny Black stamp "Bundle of Wishes", matted onto matte pink metallic card (first use of my new Nestabilities!!); sentiment stamped in Brilliance copper ink from PB transparent set "Salutations"; background papers from DCWV, with semi circle cut using X-Cut Multishaper punch; flowers by Prima; brads and small crystal gems by Papermania.

Shaz's blog candy competition

Shaz has got some stunning blog candy on offer over on her blog; and in order to win it she has set a competition for peeps to make any paper project in her favourite colours - pink, blue and green.

As a new blogger I only just spotted this in the nick of time, so rushed off this evening to make my entry, and here it is! It is also a birthday card for my Docrafts friend Squirrel as I thought she would love this fun look :-). I used:

- Penny Black stamp "Partying", coloured with watercolour pencils, and the balloons decoupaged and coloured with Cosmic Shimmers and Sakura stardust pens.

- Greeting stamp from Penny Black transparent set "Salutations".

- Papers by Making Memories and Sandylion.

- Flowers by Prima

- Sparkly brads by Making Memories

- Sparkly gems and butterfly by Papermania.

Just to prove that I really do love these colours, here's a picture of another card I made earlier but haven't published on my blog before. Main stamp is PB "Dream a Dream", background stamp is PB "butterfly border", and greeting is by Hampton art ge studio. paper is by K&Co, and large daisy by WH Smith.