Hello everyone. Once again it is the beginning of a new challenge at Seize The Birthday, where I am surprise party guest for a couple of months. This time the theme is ‘Birthday and Furry Friends’ – here is my card:
I started by stamping, colouring, and then die-cutting the images from the MFT stamp set.
The scalloped circles die was used as the background, and to add some colourful interest behind each circle I die cut three ink-smooshed backgrounds with three circles and placed them behind.
The sentiment is from the same stamp set from MFT.
I hope you can come and join us with your ‘Furry Friends Birthday’ creations – I look forward to seeing you there. xx
Hello once again. There is a new challenge started at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The theme is always – anything goes Christmas. Here is my card:
The card base layers representing the ground and floor I kept quite muted, to enable the images to stand out more. I found some chintzy paper which made me smile – so I put that on for the walls.
The window is from Mama Elephant, with patterned paper behind the glass to suggest a snowy blizzard outside, and the penguins even have some Christmas curtains hanging for the season…..
The images are from Time For Tea Designs – using a couple of stamp sets, and cut out using my scan-n-cut, coloured with Copics, and arranged as you see. I love the slippers on the right penguin on the right side – and it appears he/she is running to give an extra candy cane to the penguin who seems to be enjoying a cup of hot chocolate. Their big fur baby is just sat there, watching, bemused – who put this hat on me?
I even put a Christmas hat on the top of the clock on the mantel piece – in my story here, it is after the meal, they are trying to relax in front of the fire, and those darned Christmas hats from the crackers just get taken off and put anywhere, don’t they? 🙂
I hope you can come and join us – I love to see what other people create ready for the Christmas Season. xx
Hello once again. A new challenge has started at The Alphabet Challenge, We have reached the letter ‘B’, and the theme chosen by Melanie is ‘Birds’. Here is my card:
I wasn’t quite sure which way I was going with this theme – but when I searched through the Color My Life app – I realised I had lots and lots of stamps which had birds – some in sets, some alone – but this particular set from Clearly besotted caught my eye.
I stamped the owl images and the books with Gina K amalgam ink – a brown ink – then coloured with Copics. I used the warm greys for the owls, and played with some vibrant colours for the books. The owls had the matching die set, but the books I cut with the Brother Scan’n’cut – all good…..
I played around with placing, and decided they needed a little grounding, so I used the Heffy Doodle ‘More Strips of Ease’ dies and cut some shelves using some wood grain paper.
The sentiment is also from Clearly Besotted, and I placed it so it looked like one of the owls was pointing to it……or maybe that’s just how my mind worked!
Forgive the light rays – I had the window shutters open a little and didn’t realise – but I think it adds something…..again – maybe it’s the way my mind works!
I hope you can come and join us for our ‘B for Bird’ theme – I look forward to seeing your creations. xx
Cardz 4 Galz has a new challenge starting, and for the theme of ‘Mother’s Day USA or for a Special Person/Day’ I explored my mixed media side – here is my card:
I stuck down some patterned paper to the 5 x 7 inch card base, then used a dotted stencil, some embossing ink, clear embossing powder and even added some Tim Holtz embossing glaze to it. I then blended some Tea Dye Distress Ink to create more of a shadow over the dots:
Turning to the flower and leaves – I used a piece of Yupo I had already created in the purple/yellow tones with some gold highlights, and die cut the base flower. The layers were die cut out of the same piece of Yupo, some black card stock, and a base black flower to create some shadow and making the flower stand out just that little bit more.
The leaves were created by spraying a piece of water-colour card with Rustic Wilderness Distress Spray Stain, smooshing with the same colour ink pad adding just a touch of Twisted Citron, drying, then adding some Rustic Wilderness Embossing glaze over the top – whilst heat embossing, I threw in some gold embossing powder too – you can’t have enough gold!
The sentiment is from an older Stampin Up stamp set – Avant Garden – and just fit perfectly (in my mind) for the person I am giving this card to……..she loves purple, she is quite dramatic, but she has been my rock over the past year – my absolute rock! By ‘just being’ her – she has enabled me to remain as sane as I usually am – I’m not completely sane – but neither is she – and she has made the past year tolerable and bearable – she has been a major boon to my mental health.
So – she is the special person I am giving this card to……..
I hope you can come and join us this time round – I’d love to see what you create – and perhaps give us a little story about how this person is special to you – I’ll make sure I have enough tissues handy! xx
Hello there. Once again I am privileged to be Guest Designer on the Seize the Birthday challenge again.
This time the theme is ‘Birthday and Spring Flowers’. Here is my card:
For these flowers I stamped and heat embossed with white, and water-coloured using my Zigs. I went for soft colours, one colour of each, and just a little blending with water. I am really quite pleased with how these turned out as I haven’t water-coloured like this for ages.
I then used the matching dies – something Clearly Besotted have stopped doing now, but I’m glad I had them for this set of stamps.
As these were soft flowers, I went for a dramatic background – a grey cardstock using a Crafters Companion wood grain embossing folder on Concord & 9th Mushroom card stock. . The sentiment is from Stampin Up – stamped in mushroom ink – again from Concord & 9th, then die cut with a stitched oval.
Some little clear drop thingies – no idea what they’re called – and the card is done.
I hope you can come and join us – It would be great to see your there with your birthday spring floral creations. xx
Hello once again. There is a new challenge at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge – as always the theme is anything goes Christmas/festive. here is my card:
I seem to be addicted to interactive cards…….
For this card I stamped the cat images, coloured them with Copics, then used my scan-n-cut to cut them out. Yep – I’m getting the hang of doing that, if I do say so myself!
I wanted the middle of the card to be opened and the little mouse and sweets/confetti be hidden there, so I did a little partial die-cutting with one of the shapes in the Mama Elephant die set to create the flap.
The purple layer was raised using 3D foam, then I realised the flap kinda dipped down and was difficult to open, so I had to get further creative and make a flap thingy…….
I then added some hats to the two cats, stamped the sentiment – before sticking that layer down this time! I must keep remembering to do that – one mistake I seem to make very often.
I hope you can come and join us in our Christmas Challenge – anything goes remember……. x
Hello. I have a fun card to share today using some new products:
I recently received this Tim Holtz colorize die set of ‘Rupert’ – I decided to use the colours from the current Color Throwdown challenge to make ‘Rupert’ into ‘Rupert-Tina’!
I started with some card stock from Concord & 9th, Heffy Doodle, and Altenew and played with the layers and colours. The background stamp is from a new set from Heffy Doodle, stamped in brown Gina K amalgam ink – I wasn’t sure if I was going to colour any of it – and the flower that Rupert-Tina is holding is made of a leaf sprig and left-over white flower from a previous make – coloured with Copics.
I did have to watch the YouTube video to see which layer goes where – but it was quite easy. The hardest part was ensuring all those little pieces didn’t have glue squishing out from the side of them – but it all went quite well.
The eyes are Nuvo drops – those little black die-cuts were just a little too fiddly for me.
Hello. A new start to the alphabet for the new challenge at The Alphabet Challenge. Billie A has chosen the theme of ‘Anniversary’. Here is my card:
I decided to use some Clearly Besotted stamp sets to create this scene as most of them are sat on my desk having been delivered from their March 2021 release.
The background mountain and hillside was stamped directly onto the card base, and the other images stamped onto Make It colour blending card. No dies come with Clearly Besotted stamp sets – a money saver to be sure – so after I had coloured these with Copics – I used my Scan-n-cut to cut them all out with a little border.
I played with the layout, and only after doing that did I decide not to colour the background scene, I think it would have looked too busy, and I was going for a more clean and simple look.
The sentiment is from an Altenew stamp set, and the finishing details were white gel pen for some highlights, and glossy accents onto the hearts.
I’d love it if you could come and join us for this challenge with your ‘Anniversary’ creations – see you there. xx
Well hello there. A new challenge has started at Cardz 4 Galz and this time we want to see your girlie slimline creations – or DL card if you live here in the UK. Here is my card:
This card has no stamping on it at all – just die cuts – and it took quite a while to figure out what I was doing here, let me tell you…..
I first die-cut the foliage frame in white card, then coloured it with a couple of green Copics. I added it to a white slimline card base using 3D foam to raise it a little, and create dimension and some shadow.
The flowers were die cut from Altenew card stock, as were the two words., with some extra foliage added.
It seems quite simple now I’ve written this post – but it did take me a while…..
I hope you can come and join us – I look forward to seeing you in our gallery. xx
Hello once again. It is my turn to host the challenge at ABC Christmas Challenge. We have reached the letters ‘H’ and ‘I’, and we want to see your Christmas and festive creations with the themes of Houses/homes and/or Icicles. Here is my card:
I’m trying to use my patterned papers – I have loads, and sometimes struggle knowing what to do with them. This background paper came as part of a Simon Says Stamp card kit, and is from Whimsy Stamps – I had no problem with using this and the rest of the papers won’t last long, especially when creating festive, winter or Christmas creations.
I hope you can come and join us with your Christmas/Festive makes following one or both of our two themes. The Design Team has created some fabulous inspiration – and very different makes. xx
loopyloocards 