One Stitch at a Time Challenge 59

The theme for this week's challenge at One Stitch at a Time is Father's Day/Sports. There's be a new collection of images and papers avalable at the Stitchy Shop for May, and like the previous collections, it's free when you spend $10, and the DT are all using images and papers from it.

I got some papers from JLJ designs, and decided to use them to make a card for my oh.

I made a 'collage' of six of the eight papers on an A4 format in Photoshop Elements, measured to the correct dimensions for a shutter card. I printed the sheet onto Ryman Matte Coated Ink Jet card. The various panels have computer-generated text with the names of various sports my husband has spent significant time either playing or watching lately.

 

And from a different angle!

The sponsor this week is Digis with Attitude, who are offering three digis of the winner's choice.

And Cosmo Crkcket who're offering a crafting kit.

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

Dude Time Doodles where they have a photo for inspiration,

Lady Bug Crafts Challenge where anything goes,

Papertake Weekly where they want spots and stripes,

Tuesday Throwdown where they want polkadots

Bunny Zoe where they want 'one for the boys',

Craft Your Passion where 'you've been spotted',

Incy Wincy where they want 'bright and bold'

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Crafty Cardmakers Challenge

This week on Crafty Cardmakers, we've got an either/or challenge! To celebrate the upcoming royal wedding here in the UK, we want you to make either something for a wedding, or something red, white and blue.

And we're sponsored this week by Joanna Sheen. The lucky winner will get £10 to spend in her shop, and remember, she doesn't charge postage anywhere in the world! (I don't know of any other shop that does that.)

So, I don't have any reason to make a wedding card, so I went for the colourscheme. I wanted to do something stamped, and when I started looking through my collection of unmountd stamps, I got completely waylaid by some freebies from Craft Stamper magazine, and this was the result!

The flowers, butterfly and dragonfly are all from various issues of Craft Stamper, while the paisley 'leaves' are from a set of stamps from Artemio that I bought in France last summer.

I've used distress inks throughout, stamping the images, colouing the flowers and leaves and painting the stalks and shading the background. I stamped an extra couple of flowers and a dragonfly for layering. The flowers were also coated with a 3D glaze.

To finish, I used a Martha Stewart border punch.

Hope you can join us this week.

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

Top Tip Tuesday where the theme is 'Spring has Sprung' and what says 'Spring' better than flowers!
Incy Wincy who want 'bold and bright',
Crafty Calendar who want 'April showers bring forth May flowers'

One Stitch at a Time Second Post

This is my second post for this week's One Stitch at a  Time 'Sassy' Challenge which is sponsored by Joanna Sheen. As I mentioned in my previous post, I struggled with this challenge, until I decided that 'sassy' could mean 'bold' and I applied that to the colours I chose.

This time, I'm using an image by Blackberry Lane which is available at the Stitchy shop - 'Camelias in a Watering Can'.

I coloured the image with Promarkers including the new gold one, and mounted it using one of my eyelet nesties. The backing paper is from ME, and I finished the card with some gold ribbon.

Hope you can join us this week!

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

Papertake Weekly where the theme is 'Truly Dimensional',

Top Tip Tuesday where the theme is 'Spring has Sprung' and what says 'Spring' better than flowers!
Crafty Calendar where the theme is 'April Showers bring forth May Flowers'
Daring Cardmakers where the theme is 'Easter or Spring', and to me, Spring means flowers.
Digis with Attitude where the theme is 'Spring has Sprung'
Totally Papercrafts where the theme is 'Springtime'
Stamp Insanity where the theme is 'Flower Power'

Challenge 58 at One Stitch at a Time (First Post)

This week at One Stitch at a Time, the theme is 'Make it Sassy'. Now, that theme gave me some problems. It's probably because I'm from the UK (and not still a youngster) but that word just doesn't have any positive connotations for me. I can think of many words I'd use instead, but all of them are rather insulting. So, I checked a US online dictionary looking for something I could use and it said it meant 'bold'. Now that can be negative too, but I took it to refer to colours, and that works for me!

We're sponsored this week by Joanna Sheen, and remember she doesn't charge postage to anywhere in the world, so it's a great prize wherever you are!

This week, I got to work with an image from Floppe Latte, and chose the lovely 'Floral Border 2' image. As the name would imply, it's one of a series, and the only problem I had was picking just one!

Given the theme, I wanted some boldly coloured papers to go with the image, and I decided to use a couple from Floppe Latte's Fun'n'Funky papers set which I got a while ago. And they're so bright and cheerful, I couldn't decide which to use, so I ended up with two cards!

I placed the digi-stamp over the paper in Photoshop Elements, filling the inside areas of the stamp with white, then added the greeting. Once I'd printed the combined stamp/backing, I coloured the digi-stamp with Promarkers, and then coloured copies of the main flower and leaf to match before layering them over the image.

To finish, I used some heat-embossing. I die cut a flower shape using my nesties and Wizard, then embossed with some pastel coloured powder I've had for a while. I used four or five layers of embossing powder, and when I was happy the layer was thick enough, I added some Perfect Pearl powders to the surface before melting it into the embossed surface. One more heating of the embossing, and I stamped with a floral background stamp to give some texture. Both are finished with a sticky gem.

And so you can see the cards in a little more detail ...

Hope you can join us this week.

I'd like to enter these cards into the following challenges:
Papertake Weekly where the theme is 'Truly Dimensional',

Top Tip Tuesday where the theme is 'Spring has Sprung' and what says 'Spring' better than flowers!
Crafty Calendar where the theme is 'April Showers bring forth May Flowers'
Daring Cardmakers where the theme is 'Easter or Spring', and to me, Spring means flowers.
Digis with Attitude where the theme is 'Spring has Sprung'
Totally Papercrafts where the theme is 'Springtime'
Stamp Insanity where the theme is 'Flower Power'

Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight on Teenage Boys

I don't know about you, but I struggle with male cards. And worse than the average male card, there are those for teenagers. So this was a bit of a challenge, but an image I've had for a while came to the rescue.

The image, of course, is from Kenny K. It was a freebie a while ago, so I snapped it up while it was available. I've coloured the image with Promarkers including my new Silver one, and cut it with my new diamond Nesties. I've been looking at those for a while, and was very pleased to see them and the scallopped hearts at a very good price at Olympia in March.

The background paper and sentiment were generated in Photoshop Elements using a brick pattern which came with my older software - Namo Web Canvas - although I've de-saturated it to give a more neutral background. Then, I've added some band names supplied by my sixteen-year-old daughter. Logically, since both my sons will no longer need teenage birthday cards, it'll probably end up going to one of her friends.

Our sponsor is  this week is "Stamping Scrapping"  owned by Kevin and Cindy Echtinaw.

Hope you can join us in the spotlight!

I'd like to enter this into the following challenges:
Papertake Weekly where it's 'Anything Goes'
My Grafico where 'anything goes'
Fussy and Fancy where they want something for a child. (To my mind, that's someone under 18! Sorry if you mean younger than that.)
Crafty Ann's Challenge where they want us to raise a smile. (Guaranteed since I've hidden some very local band names in the background graffiti!)
Aud Sentiments where they want something for a child. (To me, all under 18s are children. Sorry if you meant younger than this.)

One Stitch at a Time Challenge 57

Another Sunday, another challenge at One Stitch at a Time. This week, the theme is new babies, and we're sponsored by The Stamping Boutique who're offering five digis of the winner's choice.

I was lucky enough this week to be working with one of Sylvie's images - Baby on a Blanket which is available at the Stitchy Bear shop.

Since I don't have any new baby cards in my stash, I decided to be prepared and make two!

Both images are coloured with Promarkers, with spots added to the blanket with a Souffle pen. I've matted onto some patterned paper, and backed with some Co'redinations card. The paler one in each case is Whitewash, while the darker is the standard variety. (I wish I knew how to get hold of some more Whitewash in the UK, preferably a mixed pad. I've been hoarding what I've got, and that's kind of silly since I bought it to use it!) The card has been embossed in my Wizard using an embossing folder. Not sure whose - I didn't keep the packaging, but it's lovely and embosses a bigger area than the Cuttlebug ones - definitely a plus.

The sentiment is hand-written on a nestibility die-cut which I've shaded with distress ink in either Tumbled Glass or Spun Sugar and finished with some ribbon.

The flowers are either ribbon buds I was given for Christmas, or roses I've made using punched shapes and shaded with distress inks in the same shades as above.

When I come to use the cards, I'll probably personalise them with another circle on top of the greeting.

Hope you can join us this week.

I'd like to enter these into the following challenges:
ABC Challenge where 'R is for Ribbon',
There's Magic in the Air where they want flowers,
Lexi's Creations where they want monochrome,
The Crazy Challenge where they want us to 'just add flowers'
Craft Your Passion where 'anything goes'
The Stamp Man where they want embossing,
Crafty Catz where they want embossing,
Crafty Emma's Challenge where they want monochrome
One Stop Craft Challenge where they want monochrome.

One Stitch at a Time Challenge 56

First, a Happy Mother's Day to all mums reading this. Hope you're being thoroughly spoiled.

Now, onto this week's challenge at One Stitch at a Time. This week, we want you to make something 3D. That can be decoupage, or anything else that stops your creation from being flat on the page!

We're sponsored this week by Michelle's Scrap

So, I could have chosen to do some decoupage, or some other technique to give lots of dimension, but I thought I'd try something a little different. I chose Tree Set from Gingerloft, and despite wanting to use several of those gorgeous images, settled for using just one, several times.

I first put together a digital background, consisting of a gradient that went between green and blue, and printed it onto paper. Then, I took the tree image, and separated it digitally into 'foreground' - the main tree and ground texture, and 'background' - the rest. I printed those two images separately, and then layered them with the background using sticky pads.

 

As you can probably see, I added a frame, which is also mounted on sticky pads.

Finally, I made a 'tray' into which the whole thing fitted so you can't see the sticky pads any more!

The effect is remarkably three-dimensional in real life, but I struggled to show that well in a photograph, so you're probably going to have to take my word for it!

I had originally thought of making it into a card, my my husband liked it and suggested it stay just as it is, so it's currently on display in our living room!

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

Paper Playtime where anything goes,

Top Tip Tuesday where they want something 'nature inspired'

Digis with Attitude where anything goes,

Stamp Something where it's Digi Day.

Easter Cards

I don't know what it is this year, but I really struggled to find time to do some Easter cards. It's not like I do an awful lot - just close family - a grand total of six.

I originally planned to use some decoupaged flowers and stitching, and I made one using that format.

And that card was all I managed, until I gave up the idea of stitching, and instead used one of a set of stamps I got at Olympia a couple of weeks ago. It's from 'Words Like Honey', and it seemed like a really useful set of crosses of various designs which will be useful for Easter cards as well as sympathy and other religious occasions. And once I got started, I created five!

I embossed the central cross image with Gold Mirror powder, then stamped around it using some tapestry stamps and a range of Versacolor inks. I edged the image layer with more Versacolor ink, then finished the cards with Papermania Capsule Collection papers, again edged with ink. The greetings are hand-written with my new Promarker Gold pen.

And in more detail,

I'd like to enter the top card in the following challenges:
If the Shoe Fits where the theme is 'sewing'
Karen's Doodles where the theme is Easter,
Papercutz where the theme is Easter,
Delightful Challenges where they want flowers,
Little Miss Muffet Challenges where they want stitching,


I'd like to enter the lower card in the following challenges:
The Res-Q Challenge where they want us to use our corner rounder (which I did, on all five!)
Tellen's Place where they want embossing,
Floweret Stamplar where the theme is 'Easter'
Stampin' Royalty where they want heat embossing,
Creative Craft World where they want Easter cards.