Sending Love At Christmas

Yesterday evening I sat down to a bit of a colouring session, and completely outdid any previous attempts at batch colouring as I completed EIGHT images of this gorgeous FF Santa teddy. Or to put it another way ... over the next week or two you are likely to see this image featuring on my cards a LOT lol!

Stamps: Forever Friends Santa teddy; Pink Gem sentiment;

Media: Promarkers and Flexmarkers; glamour dust on coat and hat;

Papers: Dovecraft "Holly Jolly";

Supplies: flower by WIld Orchid Crafts; pearls from The Hobby House;

Tools: large oval and large scalloped oval nestabilities; Cheery Lynn "holly flourish" die.

Challenges:

Crimbo Crackers #3 - Santa

Kaboodle #96 - Colours of Christmas

Sparkles #26 - One You Love At Christmas

Daring Cardmakers - December Flowers (Holly)

Crafts & Me #63 - Pearls & Swirls

My Mum's #34 - Keeping Warm

Paper Sundaes #98 - Sundae Bar

(I used red + stripes + die cuts)

Craft Your Passion #87 - Anything Goes + Glitter

Simon Says - Anything Goes
Totally Gorjuss #109 - Sketch

The weather here has been absolutely freezing today, t hough we haven't had any snow (YET!!). Hope you are all keeping warm .. I'm just off for a cockle-warming cup of tea now :-)

Bank Holiday Offerings

Hope everyone is enjoying the Bank Holiday in the UK despite the miserable weather ... I'm just pottering about wondering whether to brave going out this afternoon, but in the meantime I thought I would post a couple of cards I made on Saturday.

My first card was primarily inspired by Dawny's wonderful sketch for this week's Simon Says Challenge. I actually couldn't wait to get started as I have several deep border punches which would be ideal for this sketch. Here's what I came up with.

In the event I was feeling very flowery, so I used my Martha Stewart "wildflowers" PATP and made a card in restful tones of lilac ... I also managed to play with my gorgeous new Magnolia swirly butterfly; and I took the opportunity to incorporate one of my Marianne D Creatable dies as they really are my favourites, and it meant I could also enter the new Marianne's Design Divas challenge :-). I decided to slightly cut down diecuts from my swirly leaf die to make them suitable as a leafy frame for my large flower - I rather like the result and think I will use it this way again.

Recipe:

Main image: LotV fairy coloured with Promarkers and liberally dusted with glamour dust;

Sentiments: Penny Black transparent set "Party Critters";

Papers: Papermania Forever Friends "Springtime";

Supplies: large gardenia from Wild Orchid Crafts; Papermania gems;

Tools: Martha Stewart "wildflowers" PATP; Marianne D Creatables leaf flourish die; Magnolia doohickey "swirly butterfly" die.

Challenges:

Simon Says - Sketch by Dawny P

(rotated by 90 degrees to the right)

Flutterby Wednesday's #168 - Open Theme

Sparkles #19 - Punch It

Papertake Weekly - Dies To Die For (2nd entry)

Fab 'n' Funky #87 - Mono Madness

Marianne's Design Divas #1 - Anything Marianne D Goes!

Spoon Full of Sugar #162 - Happy Birthday (2nd entry)

For my second card ...this week Chrissie and Mandi over at Less is More are challenging us to combine any three of the previous challenges. I had a little time left over after making my previous card so decided to make a quick one ... and here it is.

I simply embossed the flowers onto pearlised white card and mounted onto pink and black pearlised matting, then added a die cute sentiment with a single gem heart on the "i" in "friend" plus two punched butterflies. This to fulfil the following three previous challenges:

Week 1- Pink, White & Black

Week 2 - Flowers &/or Trees

Week 15 - Embossing

Week 16 - Butterflies

Recipe:

Supplies: pink and black gems + heart gem from stash;

Tools: Cuttlebug Cut 'n' emboss folder; Martha Stewart small monarch butterfly punch.

Challenges:

Less Is More #30 - Take Three Challenges

I think that will be all for today .. enjoy the rest of your Bank Holiday.

Penny Black Saturday #155 - One For The Guys

Hi everyone ... another week had flown by, and here we are again at Saturday, which means it's time for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

Thanks to everyone for your doodletastic entries into last week's challenge - don't forget to check the main blog to see if you have won either of last week's yummy prizes.

This week we guess many of you may be gearing up for Father's Day ... or if not, then maybe you need a card for one of the men in your life. So this week's challenge theme is

One For The Guys

As always you can interpret this however you wish; but to be eligible for this week's prize you should submit a new piece of work which features a Penny Black image, large sentiment or stickeroo.

And to tempt you this week we have got another delish prize ... it is from our lovely ex-teamie Carole

and is this delish PB stamp "Love Nip".

The other ladies have conjured up some fabulous masculine cards - here is my effort for this week.

Initially I thought I would really struggle with this theme, as I have loads of PB stamps but hardly any "masculine" ones .. and those few I do have have already been seen by the only two male family members I need to make cards for! When I started scrabbling around amongst my stash I found these couple of images in a tranparent set called "Bubbly" - masculine and sight unseen by my nearest and dearest - but ... they are absolutely TINY and no way would they make a focal point of a card. I therefore decided that I would make my text big and artfully (?) place the images around it ... but then came the next problem - my die cut alphabet isn't big enough, and I don't have any templates for letters .... so I ended up making some letter templates using Wordart, and then cutting out the letters by hand from patterned paper. If you look closely they are a bit rough and ready, but the thought's there!

Recipe:

Main images: Penny Black transparent set "Bubbly", coloured with Promarkers and Copics;

Sentiments: computer generated, with "Dad" cut out from Wordart templates;

Papers: All My Memories (double sided paper), distressed with Vintage Photo distress ink;

Supplies:  buttons from stash;

Tools: Martha Stewart "scalloped dots" edge punch.

Challenges:

PaperPlay #23 - Father's Day / Man's Card

CRAFT #106 - Father's Day

Sparkles #13 - Father's Day

Alphabet Challenge - F is for Father's Day

Sew Many Challenges #56 - Father's Day

Creative Inspirations #115 - Card For Dad / Man's Card

Fab 'n' Funky #76 - Magnificent Men

Crazy4Challenges #91 - Masculine Card

Wags 'n' Whiskers #56 - One For The Boys

Everybody-Art #145 - Distress

Stamp Something - Something Punched

My Mum's Craft Shop #9 - Punch It

Passion For Promarkers #103 - Blue and Brown ( with accents of green)

Crafts and Me #38 - Stamp Something

Crafty Ann's #42 - Use More Than One Image

Cupcake Crafts #145 - Things With Tails

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

Hope you can join in with us this week - have a great weekend!

Penny Black Saturday #149 – Milestones

Good morning everyone – welcome to yet another long Bank holiday weekend, and it’s time for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

Thanks as always to everyone who entered last week’s Happily Ever After Challenge – there were some truly adorable and romantic entries. Don’t forget to check the main challenge blog to see if you have won last week’s prize.

This week the DT have very kindly allowed me to pick the theme in honour of the fact that I have a milestone birthday coming up this next week .. I am going to be 50 (yikes, when did that happen ???). So in honour of this momentous (!) occasion, this week’s theme is

Milestones

Now you could interpret this in many ways to celebrate any of life’s milestones, eg. special birthday, wedding, engagement, birth, retirement, graduation … the list of possibilities is almost endless!

Please just remember that in order to be eligible for this week’s prize you need to submit a new piece of work, with a Penny Black image, large sentiment or stickeroo as its main focus.

And talking of prizes … this week’s prize is a 15% off lifetime discount voucher form our regular sponsor, Dick at PB Stamps

Lovely!!

The other ladies on the DT have produced a fabulous selection of cards so please do check them out – here is mine for this week.

 

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black “Unwrapped” (3693H), coloured with Promarkers;
Sentiment: computer generated;
Papers: Craft Creations (gingham) and Deja Views (alphabet);
Supplies: ribbon, lace and buttons from stash (inc. white button recycled from an old shirt);
Tools: large scalloped square nestabilities; number 1 die cut using Cuttlebug “Hippie Chick” alphabet set.

Challenges:

Papertake Weekly – Sketch #55

 

The Ribbon Girl #7 – Red, White and Blue
Crafty Cardmakers #44 – A Royal Wedding (Red, White and Blue)
Fab ‘n’ Funky #70 – Red, White and Blue
Penny Black Challenge – Bold and Bright
Top Tip Tuesday #31 – Squares
Stamptacular #108 – Pile It On (at least 5 layers)
Craft Your Passion #55 - Layers
Creative Craft – Recycling ( white button from shirt)
Simon Says Stamp and Show – Some Buttons
Simon Says – Anything Goes
Sparkles #10 – Anything Goes 
Make it Monday #34 – Anything Goes
Moving Along With The Times #96 – Anything Goes

That’s it for today … I’m off out tonight for a birthday meal with my husband so I’d better start getting ready in good time :-)

Have a great weekend.