Love Is In The Air

Quite a few weeks ago I was given a commission to create a card quite a for a May wedding, but I have been putting it off until now. However, inspired both by the Royal wedding and also by being on holiday from work, I finally sat down yesterday to get down to it. My main problem was that I couldn’t quite decide what to make … so I made two! My only brief was that the sender loves pink and flowers :-)

Here’s my first card.
 

Recipe:
Main image; LotV “Wedding Couple”, coloured with Promarkers and dusted with glamour dust;
Sentiment; Whiff of Joy;
Papers: none – pearlescent white card scored and decorated with pearls;
Supplies: flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts; ribbon and pearls from my stash;
Tools: large circle and lacy circle nestabilities; Marianne D Creatables heart die.

Challenges:
Wild Orchid Challenge #22 – White + 2 with a twist – use roses
(my colours are white + pink + a hint of ivory)
I ♥ ProMarkers #63 – No Designer Papers
LotV #94 – Love Is In The Air

When the lady who asked me to make the card decides which one she prefers, I will make a box to go with the one she has chosen. Meanwhile I’ll be back tomorrow with wedding card number 2 ….

Enjoy the Bank Holiday!

Oldie But A Goodie #12 - Have A Heart

Well I would love to say the past two weeks have flown by, but I had a rotten head cold inbetween times so the past two weeks have seemed long, miserable and wintery! But never mind ... I'm feeling much perkier now so I really felt in the mood to make my second DT card for this fortnight's Oldie But A Goodie Challenge.

This fortnight it is Debs' turn to choose the challenge, and she has picked the theme

Have A Heart

So if you haven't started on your Valentine's card yet, now's the time!! But if (like me) you've got that sorted already, there are all sort of ways you can incorporate hearts into your creation - the other ladies on the DT have made some fabulous examples to inspire you.

Debs has also provided the gorgeous prize for this challenge - a yummy set of "Messy Rabbits" goodies - aww!


Don't forget that in order to be eligible for the prize you should submit a new piece of work and use a stamped image (not a digi) that is at least 6 months old ... so put your newest releases aside and have a little riffle through your stamp box to find an old but loved stamp ... and of course have fun!! :-)

Here's my card.


I decided to go with this adorable WOJ image of Belinda blowing kisses ... those little hearts are just flying through the air ... aww!! Since I last used this image I have also bought the LotV circle sentiments, and I thought this "With Much Love" one seemed perfect!!

Recipe:
Main image: Whiff of Joy "Melinda blowing kisses", coloured with Promarkers and Copics and decorated with glamour dust;
Sentiments: Woodware "happy birthday" and LotV sentiment circle; Papers: Pink Petticoat "Vintage Rose" (free with Quick Cards Made Easy magazine);
Supplies: flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts covered in Stickles; pearls from The Hobby house;
Tools: small circles and lacy circles nestabilties; Marianne D Creatables doily die embossed with Cuttlebug "birds and swirls" folder; Leone Em "ash Family" leaf punch; Martha Stewart small monarch butterfly punch.


Challenges:

I followed the fantastic sketch from this week's Creative Inspirations #97:

Whiff of Joy #97 - Love Is in the Air
Crafty Pad #107 - Love Is In the Air
Incy Wincy #80 - Love
Magical Monday #15 - LoveStamp With Fun #97 - Love
Spoon Full of Sugar #138 - Let's See Some Love
Simon Says - Love Is in The Air (3rd entry)
FTTC Bring Back Beautiful - With LoveStamptacular #97 - Hearts Gone Wild
Crafty Cardmakers #39 - Hearts
Shabby Tea Room #48 - Sweet Hearts

(use hearts + photo inspiration .. I was inspired by doilies + flowers)

Hope you can join in the challenge this time - look forward to seeing your creations.

Here comes the bride

My dear crafty friend Samantha is getting married to her fiance Efisio today, so I was delighted to be able to make them a card and I hope they are having a wonderful day. I used this adorable LotV stamp "wedding couple", which I coloured with Promarkers and decorated liberally with glamour dust. Instead of using patterned paper I took some white pearlised card and scored a "quilted" pattern using my Martha Stewart scoring board, and then decorated with little pearls from my stash. I wanted the colours to be soft, romantic and "shimmery" so I also used irisdscent pink card for the matting and hearts, and holographic silver paper for the floral swirl at the side.

Recipe: Main image: LotV "Wedding Couple", coloured with Promarkers, decorated with glamour dust, and edges sponged with pale pink ink; Sentiment: Whiff of Joy "Wedding Sentiments"; Paper: none - used white pearlised card, pale pink iridescent card and silver holographic paper; Supplies: roses and rosebuds from Wild Orchid Crafts decorated wtih stickles; "love" ribbon from local market; pearls from my stash;

Tools: large classic circle and large classic scalloped circle nestabilities; Marianne D Creatables "leaf swirl" die; Martha Stewart heart punch; Martha Stewart scoring board.

I would like to enter this card for the following challenges: Creative Craft Challenges - Here Comes the Bride

Totally Gorjuss #40 - Congratulations!

Crafty Creations #77 - Happy or Sweet

Wild Orchid Challenge #1 - Say It With Flowers

Stamp Something - Something Flowery

Create4Fun #30 - Use flowers

Passion for Promarkers #61 - Distressing

(edges of image sponged with soft ink effect)

Papertake Weekly - Cutie Patootie

Creative Inspirations #39 - Anything Goes

The Stamp Man #1 - Anything Goes

So ... to Samantha and efisio ... here's Wishing you a lifetime OF JOY AND HAPPINESS.

Creative Card Crew #52 - Thankyou

Hello again, and welcome to another Creative Card Crew challenge. Thanks to everyone who joined in my pink & green challenge over the past 2 weeks - sorry I wasn't able to get round everyone's entries as life's been a bit hectic ... but I'm sure they were all fabulous as usual! And don't forget to check the main challenge blog to see if you are the lucky winner of the challenge prize.

So onto this fortnight's fabulous challenge which has been set by Victoria, and is

Thankyou

And thankyou to Victoria herself, who is sponsoring this week's yummy prize with Stampin' Up products.

The rest of the DT have created some fabulous samples so I hope you will check them out ... here's mine.

Recipe:
Main image: WOJ "Melinda woth Bouquet" coloured with Promarkers, edges sponged with Colorbox Queue ink, and wings decorated with diamond Stickles;
Sentiment: WOJ;
Papers: Papermania "Rose Garden";
Supplies: roses and rosebuds from Wild Orchid Crafts decorated with diamond Stickles; lace was an RAK from Ruby; ribbon and pearls from my stash;
Tools: "Labels One" nestabilities.

Here's a closeup of my colouring and Melinda's sparkly wings.

... and here are my new yummy Wild Orchid Crafts large curly wild roses and dinky rosebuds ... the middle size rose was a birthday gift from Sue.

I used the brilliant sketch from this week's Whiff of Joy Challenge #80 ....

... and would also like to enter this card for a few other challenges:

Die Cut Dreams #52 - Angels
Charisma #22 - Flowers (2nd entry)
Spoon Full of Sugar #107 - Floral Delight
Paper Play #22 - Flowers & Sparkle
Pollycraft #47 - Ribbon & bling
Cupcake #94 - Dazzle Us
Colour Create #46 - Baby Pink & Pastel Blue
Corrosive #67 - Die Cuts
By the Cute & Girly June Challenge - something old, new, borrowed, blue

.... well that would be

old - my WOJ stamp
new - yummy Wild Orchid Crafts roses and rosebuds
borrowed - layout from this week's WOJ Challenge sketch, and the idea of cutting the wings outside the nestie shape (seen on several crafty blogs)
blue - colours of Melinda's headband and jeans.

Look forward to seeing all your creations.

Creative Card Crew #47 - Going Dotty!

Hello everyone and welcome to another Creative Card Crew Challenge. Wow!! ... what an amazing number and quality of entries for last week's "celebration" challenge - it was brilliant that so many of you could join us. Don't forget to check back later to see who has won my three LotV stamps blog candy :-), and who has won the prizes on the main challenge blog.

This week we have another great challenge - we'd like to see you all

going dotty!
and we have another fab prize sponsored by

which is this adorable House Mouse stamp.

The rest of the DT has been really going dotty so I hope you'll call by their blogs to check out their creations. Here's mine .... a few firsts for me as it is my first paper-pieced card and my first use of the fab Bazzill jewel templates to create my pearly flourishes :-)

I used the fab sketch from this week's Simon Says Challenge

and would also like to enter the card for the following challenges:

ABC - P is for Paper-Piecing
One Stop Craft Challenge #71 - Spots & Dots
Crafty Cardmakers #16 - A Feminine Celebration

Kaboodle #26 - Happy Birthday!


Recipe:
Main image: WOJ "Willow Shopping" coloured with watercolour pencils, edges sponged with Versamgic chalk ink, and bags paper-pieced;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards;
Papers: MME "Pretty Please";
Supplies: pearls, spacers and pearl brads from The Hobby House; flowers from my stash;
Tools: "Labels four" nestabilities; Bazzill jewel templates "Flourishes and flowers".

Look forward to seeing all your creations!

Sugar Bowl #27 - Kathy's sketch

A last minute entry from me for this fortnight's Sugar Bowl #27 - following Kathy's fab sketch and also incorporating the "added extra" of distressing.
I rotated the sketch by 90 degrees to the right, and incorporated distressing by using my new-ish X-Cut distressing tool ... wouldn't go so far as to say I've really got the hang of it but all my paper edges are definitely looking a bit battered - apart from the ones that are looking smudged with chalk ink, that is!!


Recipe:
Main image: Sugar Nellie GG "Just a Girl", coloured with watercolour pencils and edges sponged with Versamagic chalk ink;
Sentiment: Whiff of Joy;
Papers: BasicGrey "Wisteria", with all edges distressed;
Supplies: curly petal rose from Hobbycraft (edged wtih Stickles); pearls and dragonfly brad from my stash;
Tools: "Labels 4" nestabilities; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch.

Hoping to have a crafty sesh this evening so maybe I'll be back with another card tomorrow :-)

Steaming hot chocolate!

When I saw that the challenge theme this week over at Simon Says Stamp and Quixotic Challenge #8 is Hot Chocolate, my first thought about what I would most like to make was a cup of this ....

I bought this dinky stocking filler for my husband for Christmas, and what with all the snow, the bitterly cold temperatures plus the fact that I have been confined to the house for the past 4 days with a stinking head cold (this afternoon is the first time for a few days I have felt vaguely human!) it just seemed like the obvious choice!

However I soon realised this wouldn't really cut it in blogland, so I managed to make a card. Willow on the front looks pretty much how I feel ... desperate to keep warm and soothe herself with hot drinks lol! Excuse the electric light photo but there has never really been any decent daylight today all day long.

I tried to follow the hot chocolate theme both in terms of the image and colour scheme, and I also followed the sketch (which I rotated) for this week's Secret Crafter #65.


I also made this card to fit with the themes of the following challenges:

Charisma Cardz #1 - colour combo pink, brown, cream and toffee
Crafty Calendar #4 - Keeping Warm (image associated with keeping warm, plus optional extra of texture)
Cupcake #73 - Going Girly
Creative Inspirations #24 - Distressing (I sponged the edges of the image, and also lightly distressed the embossing on the two plain pieces of paper).

Recipe:
Main image: WOJ "Willow with hot chocolate", coloured with watercolour pencils, and edges sponged with Versamark chalk ink;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards "Oh! My Words";
Papers: BasicGrey "Bittersweet", "Sugared" and "Two Scoops";
Supplies: flowers - Prima and Petaloo; pearl brads and spacers from The Hobby House; ribbon by American Crafts; heart charm from Jackie's Charms and Crafts Shop;
Tools: large classic ovals and large oval scalloped nestabilities; Martha Stewart "doily lace" edge punch; Cuttlebug "Perfectly Paisley" embossing folder; X-Cut distressing tool (for lightly distressing the embossed paper).

Off to keep warm now with more hot drinks!

A combo of challenges ... and oops! I missed one!

I sat down on New Year's Day to have a little crafty sesh ... and having got yesterday's PBSC DT card done and dusted, I was raring to go with some new challenges ...

.... so I picked my WOJ Melinda image specifically so that I could enter the fab brand new ABC Christmas Challenge - A is for Angels (she was the only angel image I have that I could possibly adapt for a Christmas challenge lol ... but I think it works!) ... and I also included the "extra" of a charm :-)

.... I picked a sketch to follow, over at Papertake Weekly #31 ....

... and I picked my colours for the challenge .. but OH NO! the Colour Create challenge of pink, burgundy and ivory finished on Thursday 31/12 - doh!

Oops! Never mind - 2 out of 3 ain't bad! In fact this card was really a double oops! as I had a bit of an inky accident while colouring poor Melinda's face ... but seeing as I had already coloured all her clothes with Twinklers (the residue from which caused the accident when I wasn't concentrating on cleaning my brush!!) I just couldn't bear to throw the image away, so I just had to tone down the colouring as best I could lol!

Recipe:
Main image: WOJ "Confirmand Melinda" coloured with Twinkling H2O's & watercolour pencils, edges distressed with Versmark chalk ink, and wings decorated wtih glamour dust;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards "Oh! My Words";
Papers: BasicGrey "Eskimo Kisses";
Supplies: flower - Prima; cream tea roses from Hobbycraft, decorated with stardust Stickles; "Joy" charm from my stash;
Tools: Fiskars paper trimmer "deckle" blade; Cuttlebug "Swiss Dots" embossing folder; Spellbinders "doodles" shapeabilities.

While it's still going on with multiple entries allowed, I thought I'd also enter this as my god-knows-how-many-eth attempt for Creative Card Crew #41 - Anything Goes ;-)
Oh well ... back to work tomorrow and limited craft time :-(

Melinda does the combo

This is the first time I've been able to post any of the cards I made on Sunday afternoon, as there was no decent light yesterday to photograph anything! It really was one of those afternoons ... first I found that the piece of paper I NEEDED for one of the challenges had mysteriously disappeared (or been used up), and then I spent an hour watercolouring and decorating an image, only to smudge the flowersoft (furry edging) and glue before it was dry ... back to the drawing board!! Eventually though I did manage to make three cards ... so here is the first one.



Here is "Confirmand Melinda" - not really a Christmas image, but I think she works on Christmas cards if teamed with the right papers and embellies. I would like to enter this card for the following 9 challenges:

Whiff of Joy #53 - red, cream and one other colour (in my case ... brown)
Daring Cardmakers - getting punchy with it ... the challenge asks you to use your latest craft punch purchase. Well that's easy for me - my latest is the gorgeous Martha Stewart "Arctic Snowflake" punch. In fact, I've also used my last-but-one craft punch purchase, which was the Martha Stewart "embossed snowflakes" edge punch.
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #39 - border punches
One Stop Craft Challenge #53 - newspaper/text - I have used a piece of red paper covered with Christmas words.
Saturday Spotlight with Hidden Potential (SSHP05) - In So Many Words - again I have used the text-covered paper.
Our Creative Corner - Vintage Style
Crafty Cardmakers #7 - Stamp Something . The "optional" extra is to use a stamping technique you haven't used before or for a while - I coloured in my image using Twinkling H2O's which have been sitting in my stash unloved for a while!
Flutter By Wednesday #81 - open week ... fairy/butterfly/angel
BasicGrey #7 - photo inspiration. As you can see below - the colours are a deep red, winter white and brown.

Recipe:
Main image: Whiff of Joy "Confirmand Melinda" coloured with watercolour pencils and Twinkling H20's, distressed on the edges using distress ink, and decorated with glamour dust;
Papers: BasicGrey "Wassail" (background), BasicGrey"Figgy Pudding" (across middle), and text paper from my stash;
Supplies: BasicGrey "opaline" pearls; sentiment rub on, brads and lace from my stash;
Tools: Martha Stewart "Arctic Snowflake" punch and "embossed snowflakes" edge punch - from The Hobby House.

Here's an angled shot to show up the iridescent gold twinklies on melinda's dress ...


Back tomorrow with a couple more of my weekend efforts :-)

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 entries. I had already entered this challenge, but as this is a pretty sparkly card I have made whilst the challenge has been open, I'm entering it as a THIRD entry :-)

There must be a WOJ angel .....

The Whiff of Joy Challenge blog is one year old this week ... wow how time flies when we're having fun lol! They're having a party over there with a GRAND PRIZE (!) (yippee!!) so I thought it would be rude not to enter!

This week's challenge is a fabulous sketch, so I rapidly got on the case with it.


Here's my card. I used this gorgeous image of "Confirmand Melinda", which was a birthday RAK from the lovely Helen.

I also made this card to fit with the following other challenges:

Pollycraft Challenge #25 - use at least 2 of snowflakes, sparkle, spots, stripes & swirls ... well I have used quite a few snowflakes, and trust me, this card is VERY sparkly!!
Spoon Full of Sugar #71 - Christmas
Creative Card Crew #30 - All that sparkles
ABC Challenge - E is for Embossing

And here's another view to highlight the card's extreme sparkliness!


Recipe:
Main image: Whiff of Joy "Confirmand Melinda", coloured with watercolour pencils and decorated (liberally!!) with glamour dust on the dress and wings - edges sponged with Colourbox Queue pigment ink in "thistle";
Sentiment: E-Z rub-ons individual letters - "silver funky font";
Paper: sparkly snowflake paper by Carol Wilson Fine Arts;
Supplies: glitter card in white, pale blue & teal from Edwin Allen; sparkly brads by Doodlebug; pearls from stash;
Tools: oval and scalloped oval nestabilities; pale blue glitter card embossed using Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder; snowflake shapes cut using Cuttlebug die "Snowflakes #2".