Happy New Year

First, I'd like to wish everyone a very happy 2010.

This is the end of my first year on Blogger, and it's been easier to use than I thought it would be. On the other hand, I still think my other 'home on the web' has a better intrinsic structure than Blogger. (I've been on Livejournal for about six years, although with a different interest base.) I like the facility for replying to comments there, and I really like the community structure which allows you to 'friend' those people you want to know all about and find out about shared interests via community entries for those you don't. Having said that, and probably because you get a lot of personalisation free on Blogger, many people have multiple blogs for different subjects while single accounts with multiple subjects is more normal on Livejournal - or at least that's the impression I've had so far.

And of course, on LJ, this whole bit of waffle would be under a cut so that only those interested would be bothered with it, and the rest would just get the good wishes at the top. And that's probably my cue to stop.

Two More Challenges

I had the house (more or less) to myself for a while today, so I managed to make a card. It's done to fulfill two challenges - Colour Create which called for a lemon and lime colourscheme with an added element of spring or summer flowers. The other challenge was a sketch from Mojo Monday.



I used some stamps I've had for a while (sorry, lost the packaging so don't know whose) and coloured them with Sakura Stardust pens. I also used a dark one to overwrite the text so it had some glitz and I edged the circle with Versacolor ink. The papers are a combination of some I've had forever and some magazine freebies. I used my Wizard and nestibilities, and some ribbon from my stash. I finished it off with a felt butterfly from Mad About Cards and a butterfly brad which was kindly given to me by Shirl from Crafty Cardmaking.

Two Challenges

The first one is Friday Sketchers and the other is the Crafty Cardmakers Favourites of 2009.

I liked the simplicty of the sketch (although I did add to it.) And the Crafty Cardmakers challenge is to use my favourite products or techniques of the year. Well, that's a tough one. I like a lot of different products and techniques, but one of my favourites is definitely my Wizard with nestibilities. I especially love using the flower dies to make my own flowers. This particular die is Blossom 2 which was new at Christmas and I suspect it'll soon be my favourite of the Spellbinder flowers. The papers were decorated with radiant rain, Starburst Stains and Moonshadow ink.



The stamp is from Debbi Moore. Now I bought a set of butterfly stamps from her early in 2009 and I've always had problems with them. They're clear stamps, and they smell much more strongly (even now) than any of the others I've got. They also curl towards the image side. I recently got some rock-a-blocks and I used them instead of perspex blocks. That definitely made it much easier to get a good impression although the stamp still tended to curl off the block. So, I suspect I'll like the rock-a-blocks, although I haven't used them enough yet to give them 'favourite' status. I coloured the image with Promarkers - definitely a favourite for the year, and the papers include the one decorated with Radiant Rain and others from Papermania. The circle cut used a cutter I bought several years ago and use rarely, but when you want a circle cut, it's invaluable since it'll cut a wide range of sizes. And the flowers were finished with sticky gems - definitely a favourite!

The Stamp Man Award

The idea of this award is to to go through the things you've made this year and decide on a favourite - one which is special in some way. I chose this one because (as various people who know me know) I've had problems with stamping in the past. Now, thanks to encouragement from various people, I'm not completely scared of it. And this card is one I did to prove to myself that I could actually achieve a result I was happy with. The details are in the previous post.

For full details of the award, follow the link in the sidebar.

Christmas Cards

Not entered for anything, but I thought I'd post a few of the over one hundred I made this year.



This one is magazine freebie! The image was a stamp which I watercoloured and the backgroud paper came direct from Papercraft Essentials.



This is a simpler one - two stamps from my See Dees collection and I've embossed them in silver. The paper is one I put together.


This one is similar, but embossed in gold and the paper is from Debbi Moore.








This is another pair of See Dees stamps, embossed in clear and coloured with Sakura Stardust pens.












This one is a recycling special. The main image is the front of a card from last year which I loved. I added some backing paper and ribbon, and there it is!









And finally, this is one I did for my other half. The stamp is one I bought from Mad About Cards in one of their 50p specials, but too late for most of my Christmas cards. I suspect it'll be heavily used next year. I inked part of it in black and embossed it with clear powder, then inked the stars with clear and embossed in gold. The background is my first attempt at the cling film technique from The Stampman, although using a different product. The background card is wizarded using a Cuttlebug folder.

Sketch Saturday No. 82

I really haven't had much energy to make cards of late. Of course, doing over a hundred for Christmas might have something to do with that, as might being generally under the weather for the past couple of weeks. Still, the sketch from Sketch Saturday this week looked interesting.



The image is from a Debbi Moore CD of Art Deco and Art Nouveau images, and I've added some Sakura Glitter pen to the fireworks and detail on the woman's dress. The background paper is taken from an element of the image, and I've added some black glitter paper and textured purple from my collection. The flowers were Wizarded from paper painted with Radiant Rain and finished with a sticky gem. The scallops were done the old-fashioned way - with scissors - and I finished both that and the flowers with some glitter glue.

Colour Create Challenge 33

It's been a while since I made any cards - I blame pre-Christmas busy-ness and a long-running low-level lurgy. Still, I got inspired today by the Colour Create challenge which was to make a card with the colours lilac/purple, aqua, black and white. Now turquoise/lilac is one of my favourite colourschemes, but I was a bit wary of having black with them. Still, I coloured a couple of Cute Daisy May images and this is what I came up with.





They both pretty much fulfil the challenge, but if I've got to choose one, I'll go for the first one.

Both images are coloured with Promarkers. I've used some Co'ordinations card embossed in my Wizard with a Cuttlebug folder in both too, and the sentiment is from an Anna Griffin stamp, embossed with Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder.

The larger flowers are made with my Wizard and the smaller ones came from Craft Creations.