Valentine Card

There are so many lovely romantic images around, it's a pity I can only make one Valentine card each year! This year, I used a lovely freebie image from Lily-Boo.

The image is coloured with Promarkers and Sakura Stardust pens in silver and clear. The background paper is from Papermania and the sentiment is one I did on the computer and cut with my nesties. The ribbon came from the local 99p shop - a wonderful source of bits and pieces when they've got them! I'd like to enter the card for the Crafty Cardmaker Hearts and Romance challenge.

Fred She Said Challenge

Easter's early this year, so that means Mother's Day is likely to be too here in the UK, although I'm not sure of the date yet. Never mind. March is always a busy month for family cards, so I used the Fred She Said challenge to make a card for my mum.



The challenge was to use the FSS Challenge Blog as inspiration, and of course, to use an FSS image somewhere on the card. Well, I love the colours on the blog, so I went with those. The image is an FSS freebie, which I've coloured with Promarkers. The backing paper is one I put together on Photoshop Essentials a while ago (I said I love the colourscheme) and the mat, label and flowers were all cut using various Spellbinders dies in my Wizard. The sentiment is handwritten with Sakura Silver pen, and the butterfly embellishment is from the local 99p shop. (Wonderful place, but you've got to check regularly because stock comes and goes.) The flowers were coloured with the same Promarkers as those in the image.

Allsorts Challenge

I saw this new image from Cute Daisy May and had to have it! It's my daughter, even if it wasn't intended that way. Well, she's not known for wearing hats, but otherwise ... And she's sixteen in March so I used the sketch in the Allsorts Blog and this is what I came up with.



Her friends tease her that she always wears blue, and she definitely always wears jeans (unless she's at school). I've coloured it with my Promarkers, and backed it with some pearlescent card which has been embossed with a Cuttlebug folder in my Wizard. The Happy Birthday paper is from Papercellar (I think, but the label's gone from the pad!)The embellishments are from the local 99p shop and the sentiment is hand written with a Sakura silver pen. Unusually, I haven't used a square format - the image doesn't easily lend itself to that being so long, but I think it works pretty well.

Sketch Saturday 88

This was a pretty sketch, and I had an image all coloured ready, so I put it together.



The image is a Sarah Kay girl I got from my Secret Santa at Crafty Cardmakers. (Thanks, whoever that was!) I coloured her with Promarkers - mainly playing with some recently acquired colours - pastel green, soft green and mint green, and adding denim, bluebell and pastel blue and skin tones - ivory and blush.

The background paper is from a MME pad currently available free with Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine. The other patterned paper is from Papercellar, and the blue pearlescent paper and card, and the standard green are from my stash. I embossed some of the blue with a Cuttlebug folder in my Wizard, and used my oval and Blossom 2 nesties to mat and layer and to cut the flowers. I finished the card with a hand-written greeting and a tiny peeloff butterfly coloured with mint green Promarker.

An Oriental Theme ...

I've had this image from Mo's Digital Pencil for a while, but it's quite a tough one to colour with Promarkers when you're just starting out - all those little thin lines are hard when you're struggling with image bleed - but I finally got a result I was happy with - using the most recent additions to my Promarker range - pastel green, green and soft green, and cardinal red as well as some older ones - vanilla and dusky pink for the skin tones and various warm greys for the hair and the cat. It's such a pretty image, I was really pleased to have finally come up with a version I was happy with.



And then I went into my local newsagents at the weekend and found that Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine have a pad of MME papers as their free gift this month, and the colours are not only gorgeous, but work perfectly with the image I'd just coloured. So of course, I had to have the magazine!

The flowers are cut with my nestibilities and wizard, and edged with Versacolor ink in Raspberry, and the edging was done with my (one and only) Martha Stewart punch. The label came from the pad - all I've done is to mat it on pink card and add some wording using a Sakura Stardust pen.

I'm still getting used to the various results you get with alcohol markers on different papers. In the example above, I used the smooth white card I got a while ago from Craft Creations - probably my favourite option so far. I've also had surprising success with some inexpensive (read 99p Shop) watercolour paper, and slightly less success with high quality uncoated ink jet printer paper. I've also recently tried the Letraset Bleedproof marker pad, but been very disappointed. I knew it wouldn't let me layer colour the way the card does, but I found that even a single application of a single colour gave puddles that show clearly when they're dry. Oddly, the back of the paper gave a better result, although that tended to be a little 'muddy', and therefore not ideal either. In terms of 'bleedproof', I much prefer the results I got with some coated Laser printer paper I tried before - you only get a single application of colour, but it's beautifully smooth, so I can see there might be possibilities there - maybe colouring flowers to match an image, for example.

This hasn't been entered anywhere for any challenges - I just haven't seen any I liked the look of enough lately.

Floral Fantasies Mega Candy

This one is a mystery (at the moment) but promises to be interesting.



It's on the Floral Fantasies blog, so hit the image above to go and take a look!

Starburst Stains!

I had an unexpected day off work yesterday due to even more snow, so I had a play with my Starburst Stains. I've only got one set (so far) and it's the one with seaside-themed names. But, I've also got some Radiant Rain and Perfect Pearls and the likes, so I was mixing various options.



In this card, I used Azure Sea Asters, Sea Mint Green and Glory of the Seas Gold. I used the scrunch technique to combine the colours. The colours worked really well with the image I used which comes from Fred She Said. It's a beautiful image, and I layered the main one and then added the centre two sections as an accent. I love Tracey's images. They're simple in form but look really great, and the colour options for this image are gorgeous. (I expect I'll do a few more of them.)

I'd like to enter this for the current challenge at crafty Cardmakers - What's New! - because the Starburst Stains were a Christmas present and new.

Birthday Card

I was asked by someone at work for a card for her parents to give to their daughter-in-law, and this was the result. Apparently, the woman in question favours autumn colours - so I stuck to gold, moss green and coppery tones.

The image is from Dover Books Flower Designs and Motifs collection, and I changed the outline colour to a tan shade, and then coloured it with Promarkers.

I took an uncoloured image and also coloured it in Photoshop Elements and used this image to make the backing paper. The strip at the bottom is card coloured with Moonglow Ink in Burnished Brass and Copper and embossed in my Wizard using a Cuttlebug folder. The sentiments were designed in Photoshop Elements and, in the case of the round one, cut and mounted using my Nestibilities. (I do wish there was a better sized rectangle for sentiments - they're all too square, and none of the tags I've got was the right size.) The flowers were cut using my Blossom 2 dies, and they were also embossed using the flower screen embossing folder, and finished with some brads I've had forever but can rarely bring myself to use!

Variations on a Theme by Starburst Stains

And the stamp from this month's Craft Stamper magazine, and of course, some nestibilities.

I stamped the image four times intending to do a single card, but it was soon obvious that I'd misjudged the size - something I often seem to do. So instead, I got four cards.

This first one uses Sea Mint Green and Cockle Shell Coral. I've matted throughout with alternating black and Starburst Stains, and the flower is made using my new Blossom 2 Spellbinders die.


This one uses Glory of the Sea Gold and Opal Sea Oats.











And this one uses the Glory of the Sea Gold as well as Azure Sea Asters.













And finally, this one uses Azure Sea Asters and Sea Mint Green.

I've Been Busy

It's been hard to do much cardmaking over Christmas due to more people in the house, to say nothing for the Christmas paraphanalia that always seems to be left around. I even had to put some of my bits away that normally stay within easy reach! But, even though it's a couple of days until twelfth night, things have got a bit quieter - eldest is back at work and two younger children at school (My school doesn't start until tomorrow!) And I managed to take over the table for long enough to make some cards.


This card uses a digi stamp from Cute Daisy May and I've teamed it with papers from Papermania and tried out my new Martha Stewart punch. The image is coloured with Promarkers, and I even pulled out a punch I've had forever that does those photo corners. The sentiment is computer printed and cut using my circle nesties.


This one is similar in layout, but uses a Sarah Kay stamp. The paper's from the same pad as the last card, and again, I've done a sentiment on the computer and cut it with my nesties.


A different layout this time, although the Martha Stewart punch was used again. This time the image is a Sugar Nellie stamp, and again, it's coloured with Promarkers. I didn't have any ribbon to match this peach/brown colourscheme, so I improvised, using the papers I'd used for matting and layering, punching one and embossing the other using a Cuttlebut border folder. Like the others, the sentiment is computer generated and cut with my nesties.



This one uses some more of the Kars Oliphant stamps I got for my birthday. I masked so I could add the dog and some grassy mounds behind. Oddly enough, what I thought were grassy mounds turn out to be hedgehogs in reality, but it's amazing what a bit of green colouring does! Again coloured with Promarkers, and with some more Papermania paper, and finished with an embossed flower I made a while ago and kept as a spare embellishment.