Crafty Cardmakers and More Challenge 124

This challenge is hosted by my team mate Pamellia who's chosen a theme of Bs! She wants you to use three of the following in your project: blue, buttons, butterfly, banner and birthday. You have to use at least three of them - three butterflies alone won't be enough.

Our prize for this challenge is this beautiful Aspects of design stamp set.

And here's my card:

I kept it fairly CAS this time, but managed four of the Bs: butterflies, banner, birthday and blue. The dies I used (including for the sentiment) are from Spellbinders and Marianne and the paper is from Papermania. I finished the butterflies and banner with some liquid pearl.

I hope you can join us this time.

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

Crafty Girls where anything goes,
Addicted to Stamps and More where they want CAS
Brown Sugar where anything goes,
Keep it Simple where they want 'no stamps',
A Gem of a Challenge where they want CAS,

One Stitch at a Time Challenge 220

This fortnight at One Stitch at a Time the challenge is 'Anything Goes with a Flower'. So, easy? If you're like me, then making a card without a flower is the hard thing!

Our sponsor this time is:

 and the prize is a fabulous collection of images and papers:

So, this time I chose an image from the Gingerloft collection, and this is the result:

The image has been coloured with a combination of Promarkers and Spectrum Noir pencils I cut the image with a Spellbinders die and edged it with a little Pan Pastel. For the background, I embossed some card , and finished with some die cut bluebells (dies by Memory Box and Sizzix).

I hope you can join us this time.

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

Reves2scrap where they have a colour combination,
Creative Craft Cottage where they have a colour combination,
Sisters of Craft where anything goes,
Ladybug Crafts where anything goes,
Doodle Pantry where 'any digi goes',
Sweet Stamps where anything goes,
Passion for Promarkers where they want us to 'make it digital',
Inky Chicks where anything goes,

One Stitch at a Time Challenge 219

Yes, after a very long summer break, OSAAT is back! I must admit, it seems odd, after such a long break, sitting here while the schools still have a fortnight of holiday, posting for September. But here we go.

The challenge to start us off is 'Anything Goes with a Die Cut'. So, nice and easy, yes?

We're sponsored for this challenge by

and the winner will get this package of images and papers:

This time, I worked with a beautiful image from Scrapper's Delights called, Genie.

I've used quite a few dies on this one! I added the sentiment in Photoshop Elements then cut the image with a Sizzix nesting die and coloured with Promarkers (skin tones) and Spectrum Noir pencils. Although it doesn't show well on the picture, I edged the image with gold ink, and spattered the background with the same ink using an Ink Duster brush. The paper is from Papermania, and I've added a little gold to it - around the edges and with occasional stamped flowers which again don't show well in the photo. The embellishments use dies from Spellbinders and Sizzix's Susan's Garden range. I added a little Pan Pastel to the insides of the various petals and some more gold ink to the outside edges of petals, greenery and stamens, finishing the purple flowers with liquid pearls.

I hope you can join us this week.

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

Crafts Galore Encore where they want us to make a card,
Doodle Pantry where 'any digi goes',
Kreativeinkauf where anything goes,
Ladybug Crafts where anything goes,
Sisters of Craft where anything goes,
Crafting by Designs where anything goes,
Penny's where anything goes,
Crafty Girls where anything goes,
My Heart Pieces where they want us to 'use a digistamp'
Sister Act where anything goes.

Crafty Cardmakers and More Challenge 122

This time at Crafty Cardmakers and More we're challenging you to 'make an impression'! We want to see dry embossing on your creation.

Unusually, I had free rein of my image stash for this challenge, so I dug out my box of stamps - something I do rarely these days. I picked out a stamp from one of the earliest I bought - from Debbi Moore. I think I got a bad batch of the stamps - they always smelled very strong and seemed inclined to bend in unexpected ways, but since I didn't have much confidence in my stamping ability and since I bought them at a show at Olympia, I didn't take them back. However, now, many years later, they finally seem to have got over their problems! I think the excess solvent has finally evaporated and they're a lot less smelly and the stamped results look ok to me too. So, a happy ending to this rather long-winded story. So, on to what I did!

The stamps were a set of butterflies on various backgrounds, and this one is probably my favourite. I stamped with Memento ink and coloured with Spectrum Noir pencils. I did a little blending with Zest It, but tried to leave some of the pencil-work visible. The background was embossed using two small folders. (I'm so pleased manufacturers have finally realised how limiting the so-called A2 folders are - too short and wide for a small A6 card, but not big enough for anything else unless you use several pieces. But I've got quite a few so it's good to use them.) The folders are from Craft Concepts (the butterflies) and Sizzix (the grid.) The butterflies were emphasised using some Versamark Ink and some Pan Pastel in Pthallo blue. The lovely background card is a new one to my stash. I normally buy from Craft Creations, but since we were on holiday in the Lake District for a few days I popped in to somewhere that stocks Papermill Direct card. I was disappointed with the range available - there used to be a much wider range in the now-closed shop in Hatfield which I occasionally visited. However, that dark teal-green shade was definitely worth the visit since I haven't seen anything similar elsewhere.

I hope you can join us this time.

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

Art by Mirian where anything goes,
Brown Sugar where anything goes,
Creative Corner where anything goes,
Sister Act where anything goes,
Crafting at the Weekend where anything goes,
Treasured Times where anything goes,
Inky Impressions where anything goes,
Crafty Girls where anything goes,