Penny Black Challenge #73 - White on White

Welcome to week #73 of the Penny Black Saturday Challenge - hope you all have a really spooky Hallowe'en tonight, and thanks so much to everyone who make a spooktacular card for last week's Hallowe'en challenge. Don't foget to pop along to the challenge blog to check out who won last week's cute Christmas hedgie stamp donated by Carole.

This week we have a total contrast from the "dark side" of last week's Hallowe'en challenge - our theme is

white on white

Yes ... we would like to see your projects using only the colour white, with the exception of the colouring on your image! As always the only rule is that we need to see a Penny Black stamp or sticker somewhere on your creation.

This week we have another fab prize ... our regular sponsor Dick at PB Stamps has donated a 15% off voucher to spend in his online store - so what are you waiting for??

The DT members really have excelled themselves with a stunning selection of white cards this week - do be sure to go and check them out :-)

Here's my card for this week. You know how sometimes the whole card will spin off from one particular item in your stash?? Well this week I found some white-on-white pearlised paper AND some sparkly white floral vellum ... so I couldn't wait to get going lol!

Also for an all-white card I thought it important to try to incorporate some unusual textures, so after racking my brain I was pleased to think of using a feather ... which meant it was fabulous that I had got this wonderful vintage angelic image to hand which was an RAK from my lovely teamie Debbie.

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Sharing a Secret" (1132K) coloured with watercolour pencils and decorated (liberally!!) with glamour dust.
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards "Oh! My Words";
Paper: s.e.i "Poppy" and Papermania sparkly floral vellum; "ice gold" pearlised white card from Edwin Allen;
Supplies: Prima flower; large pearl brad from The Hobby House; white feather from John Lewis; sparkly white brads by Doodlebug; all paper edges and flower decorated with glamour dust; pearl gems from my stash;
Tools: large deckle rectangle, and large mega deckle rectangle nestabilities.

As this is such an unusual colour combo i would also like to enter it for another open challenge, namely Colour Create #30 - All White

Update Tuesday: Simon Says Challenge has just posted that they are ENCOURAGING multiple entries for their all that sparkles challenge in an attempt to reach 300 entires. I had already entered this challenge, but this is way the sparkliest card I have made for a long time (and I did make it after the SS challenge was posted), so I'm entering it as a second entry :-)

Have a great weekend, and happy crafting :-)

7 challenges - well knock me down with a feather!

Every month a group of crafty friends and I get together for a little "bits & pieces" challenge where one member sends out a kit .... and all 16 of us then have to make a card using some part of each item from the contents. This month I received a kit from my crafty friend Kaz, which contained:

1 piece or green cardstock embossed with leaves

1 piece of pale yellow handmade paper

1 piece of white Japanese silk paper

1 large green jewel brad

1 length of white/silver ribbon

1 white feather

OMG!! I thought .. this is all very pretty and nice, but what am I supposed to do with a feather ??? And just to add a bit more brain ache, the other element of the challenge was to make our own flowers ....eek!

Time was passing by and inspiration wasn't coming to me, but as the deadline had passed and I also needed to make a "get well" card for my other friend Squirrel who has just had a big knee op, I thought I'd better get to it!! As usual I also cast around for other challenges to inspire me, and here is the result ....

I bought my new WOJ Melinda on Monday and she struck me as very apt for a get well card; and then it occurred to me I could tie her in with the theme of a white feather ... thank the angels for that! I was still struggling with the handmade flower theme, but I had seen another fab card by my friend Samantha featuring a gorgeous flower for which she has put a great tutorial on her blog, and decided to give it a go! So finally I was up and running.

I would like to enter the card for the following challenges:

Stamp With Fun - I have laid out the card in line with this week's sketch

Stamp Something - yellow, green and blue - which I have reflected in the cardstock and papers

Cute Card Thursday #56 - Floral Fantasy

One-Stop Craft Challenge - Decorative Cuts (my greeting is Cuttlebug diecut, and I have punched the edges inside and out)

Creative Card Crew #7 - Round and around - I have made a circular flower, used a circular brad, and punched a border of circles using my new MS "Scallop Dot" punch

Dutch Dare #44 - Favourite Things - well I have so many ... but at the moment my Melinda stamp is right up there, as is my new MS punch.

...and of course I have made the card for my friends' challenge, making a total of 7 :-)

Recipe:

Image: WOJ "Melinda with bouquet", coloured with watercolour pencils and Sakura glitter pen (flowers), and wings deorated with Glamour Dust;

Papers: BasicGrey "Oh! Baby Boy" collection;

Supplies: papers used for flower, green cardstock, brad , ribbon and feather from my friend's kit; raffia lace from Hobbyraft; flowers inside by Prima and Floradoodles; edging created using MS "Scallop Dot" punch (from ebay); large gold beadcaps (flower centres) from the Hobby House; pearl gems from my stash.

In the end I'm actually pretty pleased with how the card turned out, and think I may well use the idea of a white feather with Melinda again in future :-)

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 & Sparkle for my 100th post

Wow! Here I am already at 100 posts ... that has really crept up on me! I was so busy watching my hit counter so I could give a way my 5,000 hits candy, I almost overlooked this milestone. I'm already looking forward to the next 100 posts as I'm well addicted to blogging by now LOL!

Anyway .. onto this evening's card (which I made yesterday evening, but of course had no light to photograph it by). My starting point as so often was a sketch, which immediately put me in mind of making a Christmas card (though of course most things make me think about Christmas cards right now !!) I also started thinking about multi-challenge possibilities, and believe I have managed to tie this one in to 5, as follows:

1. Friday Sketchers #27 - I really had fun with this fab sketch.



2. BasicGrey #10 is glitter: well, my Christmas cards do have a natural tendency to be glittery, and this card certainly delivers on that score. My large diecut snowflake and small centre snowflake are both cut from glitter card; I have decorated the snowflake with a Doodlebug sugar coated brad and glitter yarn fibres; I have used white sparkly lace from Hobbycraft, and put a few Stickle highlights on the snowballs. The BasicGrey element is the base paper which is from the "Dasher" collection.


3. This week's High Hopes Challenge#7 is Sparklemania - which I hope I've already explained above!!

4. Whilst visiting my new fellow DT member Domi's blog I discovered a new challenge called Everybody-Art, where this week's theme is brown and blue. I have done my best to reflect this in the 2 papers and the way I have watercoloured the image.

5. Last but not least, I found that this week's Cuttlebug Challenge #7 is to emboss a diecut. I think this card technically fulfils that challenge rather than the real spirit of it, as I have cut and embossed the large snowflake using the new Cuttlebug cut'n'emboss combo. I must admit I'm a little disappointed with the embossing aspect of this duo, as the embossing lines don't match up terribly well with the diecut outline, but nonetheless it does give the snowflake a bit of dimension.

Image: Sugar Nellie snowman gifted by Cathy, watercoloured with Marvey brushstroke pens
Papers: Basic Grey "Dasher" (base layer) and other paper unnamed from split stack at local craft shop
Brads: sparkly Doodlebug "sugar coated, and Dovecraft snowflake
Lace: Hobbycraft
Sparkly fibres : Cardology
Pearl gems: Create & Craft

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).

Bits'n'pieces challenge & Cute Card Thursday

My crafting friend Samantha set a little group of us a challenge ... she sent each of us a secret envelope and we had to make a card with the contents ...yikes! This is what she sent:

• Penny Black flower stamped image - "Portraits"


• Penny Black butterfly stamped image


• Pink silk flower


• Silver flower brad


• length of pink sticky ribbon


• Piece of whitecard embossed with Cuttlebug dots


• Pink tag

This what I made.... I based my theme around the piece of brown/pink background paper I had luckily bought just before - so I coloured the flowers and butterfly with pink Twinkling H2O's and used some pink pee wee glitter to mirror the glitter on the paper, then cut them out and decoupaged them. I also used a Papermania brown pearl brad, a silver peel off on the tag, pink Papermania gems and some silver stringed ribbon to add finishing touches.

Luckily enough this week's Cute Card Thursday Challenge #26 is Pretty in Pink ... so I hope the general girly, flowery, sparkly, fluttery nature of this card qualifies LOL!