Wishing you A Lifetime of Joy and Happiness

My colleague Julie is getting married this coming Saturday, so there has been a lot of excitement around the office. Dresses, flowers and accessories have all been discussed, and we all had a great time at the hen night three weeks ago. Julie's a fab colleague and friend, so we're all wishing her and her fiance Dean all the best for a wonderful life together. 

Of course I had to make a card to mark this momentous occasion, and to make it special I decided to make another 8" * 8" card. Here it is ...

I actually had a bit of foresight here, as about three months ago I won a store voucher in a challenge for Crafty Emma's store (sadly now closing down); and one of the items I chose was this adorable Fizzy Moon wedding couple stamp - it is quite a big image so perfect for a large card.  I also found some very wide lace in my stash which I hadn't used as I found it too wide for normal 6" * 6" cards, but it was in much better proportion for this size.

My paper is covered with glittery embossed butterflies - sadly they don't show up too well on the pic but in real life are really pretty and twinkly. As you can see, I've taken the concept of the wedding bouquet quite literally with an absolute mass of flowers!! (I think I can count 15 on there!)

I also had a go at a different technique with a bow: firstly I made a double bow out of  vintage seam binding with my Bow-Easy from Bunny Zoe's Crafts, then I threaded a diamante heart buckle onto a separate piece of seam binding and tied it around the original bow, securing it at the back with a knot and then cutting and arranging the ends into a third set of "tails" for the original bow. The aqua colour was chosen deliberately as that is the colour of Julie's bridesmaids' dresses.

Stamps: Fizzy Moon "Wedding Bells"; Whiff of joy sentiment;

Media: Promarkers and Flexmarkers; glamour dust on bride teddy's veil and headdress;

Papers: Best Creation Inc;

Supplies: flowers, seam binding (and lace, I think!) from Wild Orchid Crafts; pearls and diamante buckle from my stash;

Tools: Martha Stewart "Valentine lace" edge punch.

I  also made a box to match the card ... here's a pic of the lid.

Challenges:

Wild Orchid #50 - Anything Goes

Bunny Zoe's #24 - Anything Goes

J&C Creations #1 - All That Glitters

That's all for today - thanks for visiting.

Oldie But A Goodie #18 – Say It With Flowers

Good morning everyone, and welcome to a new Oldie But A Goodie Challenge. Hope you have enjoyed all the Bank Holidays over the past fortnight … I have been on holiday from work, just chilling, but alas I am back in the office today for the first time in nearly two weeks :-(

Thanks so much to everyone who entered last fortnight’s challenge .. fabulous entries as always :-) Don’t forget to check the main challenge blog to see if you have won!

This fortnight it is Tracy’s turn to choose the challenge, and she has chosen an easy peasy theme that I’m sure you’ll all love …

Say It With Flowers

Now you can interpret this however you choose, but please remember that in order to be eligible for the prize, you will need to use a stamped image (not a digi) that is at least six months old.

And talking of the prize …  Tracy has also provided this yummy paper pack and ribbons … lovely!

The rest of the DT have created some fab floral creations – here is my card, which is the second of my two wedding cards.

Recipe:
Main image: LotV “Wedding Couple” coloured with Promarkers and sprinkled with glamour dust;
Sentiments: Whiff of Joy “Mr & Mrs”; LotV “Stamp Calendars”;
Papers: Pink Petticoat “Vintage Rose”;
Supplies: flowers by Sweet Lilac (Crafts4U2Do); lace by Wild Orchid Crafts; Papermania heart gems;
Tools: small and large circles and labels 3 nestabillties; Cuttlebug “floral fantasy” embossing folder.

Challenges:
Die Cut Dreams #88 – Wedding
Stampin’ For The Weekend #8 – Wedding
Incy Wincy #92 – I Do 
Lili of the Valley #94– Love Is in The Air
Crafty Catz #80 - Congratulations
Dream Valley #6 – Flowers
My Mum’s Craft Shop Challenge #3 – Flowers
Stamp With Fun #109 – Ribbon or Lace 
Totally Gorjuss #78 – 1-2-3 (1 piece of lace, 2 papers, 3 flowers)
Totally Papercrafts #64 – Glitter
Cupcake Challenges – Something Beginning With C (circles, couple)
By The Cute & Girly (May) – Anything Goes
Pollycraft #91 – Anything Goes
Craft Your Passion #56 – Anything Goes 
Simon Says – Anything Goes (2nd entry)
A Gem of a Challenge #20 – Sketch

Hope you can join us this time, and 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.

Something Old ... Something New ....

My colleague Paul is getting married to his fiancee Claire this Friday; so what better excuse did I need to buy some of the fabulous new WOJ wedding collection stamps, and then set about making my first ever wedding card?

I felt quite a sense of responsibility making a wedding card as I hope that they will keep it as part of their wedding memories; so I agonized for ages over the papers, layout etc. I had craftily tried to find out, through casual conversation, the the colours of the bride's dress, wedding flowers, groom's suit etc .... not easy when it's the groom you're talking to lol!! Anyhow I did my best and eventually was pretty pleased with the result.


I used the stunning new WOJ "Willow" and "Oakley" wedding stamps, and tried some masking to get them standing close together (aww!). Knowing that the colour theme I was looking for was pink and ivory, I was fortunate in that I had some wedding theme papers in those colours which had come free with Creative Cardmaking magazine.

Here's a pic that shows the shimmer on the bride's dress and groom's waistcoat, which I achieved by painting with Twinkling H2O's in oyster and iridescent gold. The glimmer is actually quite subtle - just when it catches the light.

I also roughly painted the flowers with the H20's in iridescent gold, which made them quite twinkly.

I'd like to enter this card for this week's Creative Inspirations Challenge #13 which is

Something old, something new ...

I have interpreted this broadly as being a wedding card; but if we need to be literal then here goes ...

Something Old - pink & cream wedding papers from issue 3 of Creative Cardmaking magazine

Something New - Willow, Oakley and sentiment stamps by Whiff of Joy, and my MS Valentine Hearts punch
Something Borrowed - the idea of masking the bride so that you can still see the groom through her veil - from the lovely Rach's blog (example here)
Something Blue - this was me last night, as I only finished this card at 12.20am lol!!

Here's a peek at the inside....

Recipe:

Main image: Whiff of joy "Wedding Collection", Willow the Bride and Oakley the groom, coloured with watercolour pencils and Twinkling H20's;

Sentiments: from the WOJ "Wedding Sayings" collection;

Papers: K&Co (cream script paper); others free with Creative Cardmaking magazine;
Supplies: pink & white flowers from Poppicrafts (a birthday present from my friend Helen), painted with H2O's; paper roses from Hobbycraft; crocheted ribbon from Quixotic Paperie; charm from Dolls Made Up; leaves punched with Leone Em Ash Branch punch; edges punched with MS Valentine Hearts punch; pearls from my stash.

Having made this card I also managed to make my first ever box to put it in, so it wouldn't get squashed. No photo of that as I left it plain, but I'm now thinking I will want to make more boxes in future!