International Art and Soul Challenge 87

The theme for this fortnight is Tiny Things. How you interpret that is up to you!

I used quite a few 'tiny things' in my card, and even came up with a sentiment that seems to me to work too.

I started with some Mixed Media paper and gave it a background tint using Distress Oxide ink, then added some flowers and butterflies using some Card-io Majestix stamps (the first 'tiny' thing.) I added a little Perfect Pearl powder to add a little shimmer, but that's not obvious in the photo. Next, I cut a 'trellis' using a Tonic die, and added some branches and lots of tiny flowers. The branches are a combination of Spellbinders and Cheery Lynn as were the flowers. I then added some flower centres and 'leaf buds' using liquid pearls.

Finally, I designed the sentiment in Photoshop Elements and printed it on photo paper. In case it's hard to read, it says, 'The Greatest Successes in Life are the Culmination of Lots of Tiny Things'.

I do hope you can join us this time.

International Art and Soul Challenge 82

For this challenge, you can make anything you like in any colours providing the end result isn't a square or rectangle.

I made, surprise, surprise, a card.

I used my Tonic Celtic Circles dies for all die cutting here except the flowers, including adapting a square card to a round one. There is, of course, a slightly flattened hinge to the card itself, but that is rather perfectly hidden by the lilac layer which was cut using the same die.

The central panel was stamped using stamps from Creative Stamper magazine. The flower border uses flowers cut using a Cheery Lynn die. Both the die cut and stamped flowers were finished with a spot of Liquid Enamel in white.

I do hope you can join us this time.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 224

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers for this fortnight, and indeed, over the Christmas period is Christmas!

I've used a Woodware stamp set, and coloured the image with Promarkers. I really do like the image - it's simple, yet complex with the knot-work pattern.

I've framed the image and sentiment using a die set from Cheery Lynn which I've had for a long time and used less often than I expected to.

I actually tried several options for this card before I decided on this option. The base card is one I bought at Ally Pally several years ago. It's a beautiful perlescent dark green colour, but I think they'd been badly scored, so I always have to trim a bit off to get a square card. I embossed the side panel using a folder that was a magazine freebie some time ago. To try to accentuate the snowflakes, I gently applied some Versacolor yellow ink to the panel, which had the effect of slightly warming the tone there, but that isn't obvious in the photo.

I do hope you can join us this time, and whether you do or not, wish you and yours a very happy Festive Season.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 156

This time, at Crafty Cardmakers, we want you to use dies or punches, but other than that, you can create whatever takes your fancy!

I was asked to make a card for a colleague to give to someone.

The background paper comes from a CDRom called Flower Power. I designed the greeting in colours to match in Photoshop Elements, and die cut both that and the mat. The flowers are all made using die cuts - mainly from Sizzix dies, but there are a few Cheery Lynn ones and a couple of Creative Expressions dies there too.

I hope you can join us this time.

Crafty Cardmakers and More Challenge 142

Another challenge from Crafty Cardmakers and More - this time to use a sentiment on your project. While it would be lovely if the sentiment was the focus of the project, so long as there is one, it fits the challenge. So, what are you waiting for?

I was asked to make a card for a friend whose mother got married recently. The colour scheme for the wedding is white/silver, so I looked out all my white and grey card as well as some silver mirror card and gave my Big Shot Pro a bit of a work out!

I've intentionally put the watermark over the couple's names. I used papers from two CDRoms - the floral one is from my Flower Power CD and the very pale lacy one is from Ivory Cats. In both cases, the papers were coloured, but I took the colour out in Photoshop Elements before printing. I generated the sentiment and matted it using Spellbinders dies. The flowers were made using dies from Sizzix, Memory Box, Cheery Lynn and quite possibly others. (I keep my 'normal' sized dies in a box intended to store CDs, in little CD sleeves, so the original packaging is long gone.) I've used some liquid pearls for flower centres and the tips of stamens.

Now, although I used some of the flattest of the flowers I've got dies for, this card wouldn't easily fit into an envelope, so I made a box too.

The label here is blank so my friend can address it herself, and it's not even attached in this photo because it's a pain to write on things on the top of a box! Here, I've used similar dies to before, with the addition of a Creative Expressions bow die.

I hope you can join us this time!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Gals Corner where anything goes,
Penny's where anything goes,
Sisterhood of Crafters where the theme is Weddings,
Crafting for the Craic where the theme is The Big Occasion,
Cards Galore Encore where anything goes,
Paper Creator where anything goes.

Baby Card

Since I bought myself a set of Spectrum Noir pencils, I've spent a lot of time practising with them without necessarily intending to use the results. And then my daughter returned from university for the summer to tell me she's been invited to a 'baby shower' for the older sister of a friend, and could she have a card. Now, neither she nor I get the idea of 'baby shower'. It's obviously an import, and it flies in the face of tradition in the UK where it's seen as unlucky to get very much for a baby before he/she is born. I still remember the horror on my mum's face when we told her our eldest's pram would be arriving before his due date!

However, she was going to choose an image for me to work with, and then she got busy and last night realised that she needed it first thing this morning. So, I found one of my practise pieces, and went with that.

Fortunately, the mother-to-be knows she's expecting a girl and has a horror of 'baby pink', so my peach and blue colour scheme didn't seem too unreasonable.

This was a trial of flat colouring with Promarkers and then shading with the pencils, and I do think that's the best option for me. It allows definite but fairly subtle shading without excessive bleeding or mottling of the card. The paper is one I've had for many years - really pretty papers that for some reason I find very difficult to use. I suspect it's because they've got limited colour ranges - peach/white or pink/white or cream/white, and I do like to combine colours!

I cut the image using a Spellbinders die and embellished with a wooden teddy I've had pretty much forever, some ribbon, and some flowers I made using dies from Sizzix and Cheery Lynn. The image is from BB Cakes and it's called Flora Fae. It's available from the Stitchy Bear Outlet (link in my sidebar).

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and More where anything goes,
Crafty Girls where anything goes,
Little Miss Muffet where anything goes,
A Creative Need where anything goes,
Crafty Catz where anything goes,
Sister Act where anything goes,
Creative Card Crew where they're having a 'fairy day',
FanTastic Tuesday where anything goes,
Lacy Sunshine where anything goes,
Incy Wincy where they want 'things with wings'.

One Stitch at a Time Challenge 211

This week at One Stitch at a Time, we want to see some ribbon and/or lace! That's it - otherwise, you can choose any theme/colours you wish!

We're sponsored by

I got to choose from Stitchy's range of products for this one, and I chose Misty.

I cut the image with one of my new Sizzix dies, then coloured with Promarkers. The paper is a MME magazine freebie from a few years ago, and I finished with some ribbon and lace from my stash as well as a flower made using a Crealies die and some from Cheery Lynn.

I hope you can join us this week.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafting by Designs where anything goes,
Inklings and Yarns where anything goes,
The Paper Shelter where they want ribbon,
Crafty Sentiments where anything goes,
Crafty Girls where anything goes,
C.R.A.F.T where they want us to make our own embellishment (hand-made flower),
Crafty Ribbons where anything goes (with a ribbon),
Crafting at the Weekend where anything goes,
Inkspirational where they want pink and green,
Suzy B's where anything goes.

One Stitch at a Time Challenge 209

This week at One Stitch at a Time, we want to see your favourite things! That can be images of something you love or a favourite technique or favourite colours ... Lots of scope here!

Our sponsor is

This week, I got to choose from Stitchy's collection of images which is perfect for this challenge because my one of my favourite things to create with are Stitchy's silhouettes. And one of the advantages of having been on the OSAAT team for a while is that I've got quite a selection! Another favourite thing for me is designing on my computer. And among my favourite images are fairies. So, here's what I came up with!

For this, I created a background in Photoshop Elements using various shapes and gradients. Then, I added various images from Stitchy's selection of ground-cover silhouettes called Grazin' in the Grass. I then added two of Stitchy's fairy images - the larger one is called Reach and the smaller one is from a pack called Rainbow Magic. Once everything was composed, I copied everything, cropping it using a circle, then faded the background before pasting the circle on top. Apart from matting, the only other addition is another favourite - hand-made flowers. These used dies from Crealies and Cheery Lynn.

I hope you can join us this week.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

ABC where the theme is, 'Just as you Like it',
Crafting Musketeers where they want monochrome,
Everybody Art where anything goes,
Party Time Tuesday where they want die cuts,
Crafty Girls where anything goes,
Crafty Calendar where they want 'things with wings',
Digitally Sweet where they want flowers,
Totally Gorjuss where they want die cuts,
Savvy Handmade Cards where they want fantasy creatures,
Sister Act where anything goes.

A Quiet Weekend

That's what we've had! And very nice it's been too. We managed to get out for a walk yesterday while the sun was shining, and today I've made some bread and between those things, I've been making some cards.

This first card uses an image I won some time ago. It's from Sassy Studios and it's called 'My Fair Lady'. I teamed it with some papers from my Pamela West CDrom. I did tweak the colours the papers to bring them closer to one of my favourite Promarker colours - Bluebell. I combined the papers in Photoshop Elements before printing them. I cut the image using a Spellbinder die, and coloured the image with Promarkers, finishing her beautiful feathered hat with a feather from my collection. Rather than matting the image, I decided to 'borrow' an idea I spotted recently. I thought I'd remembered where I found it, but when I looked, I couldn't find the project. So, apologies to whoever it was who I saw surrounding an image with flowers! The flowers were cut using some Cheery Lynn dies and finished with a liquid pearl in the centre.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

The Doodle Garden where anything goes,
Bugaboo where anything goes,
ABC where the theme is 'Girls',
Natalie and Amy's Challenge where they want flowers,
The East Wind where the theme is 'use a digi',
I Love Promarkers where the theme is 'die cuts',
Tuesday Throwdown where anything goes.

The other card is really quite different.

Here, I've used a stamp from Crafty Individuals. I treated myself to a few in the run up to Christmas, and coloured it over the school holiday. I went searching through my digital papers to find something to use with it, but didn't find anything quite as I wanted it. I did find a paper that came from my Crafty Emporium CD (from Crafty Computer Paper), but it had a grey background. A little magic from Photoshop Elements, and the background is rather closer to the Promarker Shade 'Pastel Pink'. The image was coloured with Promarkers. The flower was made using a set of dies from Susan's Garden. The poppy is a little big for a six by six card - I do wish she'd done a smaller version of her dies - but as a single flower in this instance, I think it works. I shaded the flower with Pan Pastel in black and finished it with a liquid pearl.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

CMC where the theme is 'Flaming Reds',
Sunflower Fields where the theme is 'birthdays and/or flowers',
Card and Scrap where the theme is 'use dies',
Sister Act where anything goes,
Fan-Tastic Tuesday where anything goes,
Party Time Tuesday where anything goes,