More Christmas!

Five more Christmas cards to be precise! See how my target of 100 is rushing towards me?! All five of these cards have been made with Penny Black Christmas stamps and have been coloured with Aquamarkers. I've inked around the edges of each image with a very worn but trusty blue inkpad.

I've embossed panels with either a Cuttlebug snowflake folder or Swiss Dots plus added either red raffia,
or Tempting Turquoise ribbon from Stampin' Up

or even some red ric rac from my stash. I've used a Spellbinder Nestabilities die to cut all the stamped images out with exception to the first card as I just used it as a template to draw around.
A few snowflake confetti shapes, glittering with stickles and a bit of faux stitching and the cards are complete!

The cards fit the following challenges:

Christmas Cards All Year Round: Make 5 Christmas cards and choose at least 4 ingredients from list - mine are: Stitching, Ribbon, Inking, Stamping and Texture
Desert Island Crafters: Choose minimum of 3 items from list - mine are: Dry Embossing, Ruffles, Stitching
Charisma Cardz: Negative Space (third card from top fits this best!)
CAS-ual Friday's: Clean and Simple and Embossing

• Images: Penny Black, coloured with Aquamarkers
• Embossing: Cuttlebug
• Dies: Spellbinder Nestabilities
• Ribbon: Turquoise - Stampin' Up, everything else my stash
• Everything else: My stash
  

First Attempt at Distressing!

I've never tried distressing the edges of paper before and decided to give it a go on this, and I'm quite pleased with the results! The Christmas Challenge this week asks for:

Blue and White

I've used tiny bits of other colours (couldn't not do as they were already on the paper!) but primarily white / silver and turquoise / blue. The paper is from Dovecraft Let It Snow 4.5 x 6.5 paper stack and its been layered onto a silver card blank. Not sure if you can see, but I've doodled a fine white line around the edge of the card blank with a white gel pen.

I've also added a bit of stitching across the top of the paper for a bit more distressing. The gems are from my stash - the large silver one is from the Poundshop along with the wooden glittered snowflake. The ribbon is from Stampin' Up and I've added extra 'legs' to the bow.

This also fits the following challenges:

Paper Romance: Distressing
Christmas Card Challenges: Snowflakes
Paper Sundaes: Vintage or Shabby Chic

• Paper: Dovecraft Let It Snow
• Large gem and Snowflake: Poundshop
• Ribbon: Stampin' Up
• Everything else: My stash
  

Polkadoodle Challenge 19 - Menu Recipe!

Welcome to another Polkadoodle challenge - slightly messed up due to Blogger problems over the last 36 hours, but hey! We're still here!

This week Colette has set the challenge and it is a menu recipe!

Colour: Pink or Turquoise

Image: Fairy or Butterfly

Embellishment 1: Ribbon or Lace

Embellishment 2: Pearls or Gems

So you have to pick your colour, the image and one each from the embellishment list.

I've gone for clean and simple and used four butterflies printed from Sundae of Seasons onto vellum, layered up with foam pads. I've added some gems to the body for extra sparkle.

The ribbon is Tempting Turquoise from Stampin' Up and I've used a Martha Stewart punch for the detail.

And you can see all the layers here - I did curl the vellum a little before I added it to the card but as I'd used a ribbed vellum it was a bit more resistant!

Good luck with the challenge - it is open until Sunday 22 May at 12noon GMT and please remember our rules!

• Butterfly: Sundae of Seasons cd
• Ribbon: Stampin' Up
• Punches: Martha Stewart
  

Say It With Flowers

I had a sort through all my stamped images a few weeks ago to see what I had and probably what I could do with. Most of the images are from stamp swops, RAK's or ones that I've had for ages. Not sure where this image came from but decided that it fitted the Penny Black at Allsorts challenge this is:

Say It With Flowers

I've coloured it with Aquamarkers as I like the richness they give and I find they are a lot quicker to use than Promarkers! The sky wash has been done with watercolours. I've rounded the corners, added some tiny half pearls and used some of the never ending Tempting Turquoise Stampin' Up ribbon and a hat pin that I made myself.

The papers are a freebie pack I got a while ago from a craft magazine - My Minds Eye, Pretty Please Spring Papers 6x6 stack.

• Image: Penny Black, coloured with Aquamarkers
• Papers: My Minds Eye - Pretty Please Spring Papers 6x6
• Ribbon: Tempting Turquoise - Stampin' Up
  
• Everything else: My stash
  

Party at Going Buggy!

Well, we all like a good party and what better than an online party and celebration that lasts a week! Enfys is doing just that to say thank you to all her followers and email subscribers and today is day one!

She has set a challenge of making a card that features a bug on it. This can include butterflies, dragonflies, bees etc and you could be in with a chance of winning some fantastic stash! For more details and how to enter click HERE to be taken to her blog! Ever day over the next week there will be prizes to win over on her blog!

I'll be popping up later in the week too as part of Enfys' celebrations, so keep watching my blog for further details!!

To enter Day One challenge create a card with a bug and go to Enfys' blog to link up your card - the challenge closes on Saturday 22 January at 12noon GMT.

For my card, I've used a Digi Sparkle image which has been coloured with Pomarkers and layered onto Funky Hand Girls and Boys download papers plus some random papers from my stash. A few gems here and there, bit of corner rounding and some inking and the card is complete! Plus bonus points for me here as I've used offcuts from my bits box and the card base is waste from the Scrap Store! The ribbon is Stampin Up and its called Tempting Turqoise!

Good luck in entering the challenge and I shall see you later in the week for more fun!

• Image: Digi Sparkle, coloured with Promarkers
• Papers: Funky Hand - Girls and Boys download
• Ribbon: Stampin Up
• Everything else: My stash
  

Merry Little Christmas

I feel like I'm doing really well in being prepared for Christmas this year. Although don't know how long that feeling will last once the weather warms up (if it ever does!)

Jingle Belles Rock has a theme of:

Have Yourself a Merry *LITTLE* Christmas

With the emphasis being on little. As I've done pretty well (even if I say it myself!) in the January sales so I've used two of my purchases to make these little 9cm square cards. Both sets use papers from Dovecrafts Let It Snow 4.5 x 6.5 glitter double sided paper stack (bargain at £2.99 in the Range!)

I've used my Nesties to cut the shapes - the largest one for the bottom half shape and then the smallest two to layer the embellishments on. The little sparkly gifts and snowflakes are from three packs of Christmas embellishments for 29p each from Hobbycraft - I've simply changed the colour of the gem in the centre of the green themed cards to a green gem and then added a gem to the top of each of the gifts.

The turquoise ribbon is Tempting Turquoise from Stampin Up and the green I think is Dovecraft and it was in my stash.

Although you can't see it properly (rubbish photos but I blame not having enough daylight!) the blue papers are sparkly and all the gifts are too! Very pretty!

• All papers: Dovecraft Let It Snow 6.5 x 4.5 paper stack
• Dies: Nestabilities
• Embellishments: From Hobbycraft
• Ribbon: Stampin Up and Dovecraft
  

Simple and Cute!

I've missed so many of the Lili of the Valley challenges, mainly due to lack of time! But I'd been sent some of the lovely die cut images by Enfys some time ago and I liked the look of the current sketch challenge, so I went for it!


And made two cards! It seemed a shame not to make both a girl and a boy card! The images are Lili of the Valley and are just so sweet! For both cards I've used similar elements - for the girl card I've used papers from Tinker and Co - Shabby Quilt along with a Martha Stewart punch which I've threaded the ribbon through via another punch I had plus ribbon and seed beads from my stash. The brad was also sent to me by Enfys an age ago!

The matching boy card again uses papers from Tinker and Co but this time Spring Fresh along with a Fiskars border punch, ribbon from Stampin' Up (Tempting Turquoise) and again seed beads and brads from my stash. The large sentiment brad is from Enfys too!

So there you go! Two pretty quick and simple cards to add to the baby box!

• Images: Lili of the Valley
• Papers: Tinker & Co Shabby Quilt and Spring Fresh kits
• Punches: Martha Stewart, Fiskars and one of mine
• Boy ribbon: Stampin' Up - Tempting Turquoise
• Everything else: My stash
  

Sparkling Stampin' Up!

There is a new blog challenge site - this one is for Stampin' Up stampers! And their first challenge is a sketch:

I was lucky enough to be sent a few stamped images from Jan who has just started out as a Stampin' Up demonstrator and I've used one of them on this sketch!

The backing papers are all from the same collection on Funky Daze and I've inked the edges with bright pink ink and then the trusty virtually worn out black! The grosgrain ribbon is from my stash and I added the bow on afterwards (I use a bow maker - so much easier than trying to get the front knot flat and straight!)

I've used a compass to make the shape on the image, which has also been inked and coloured with watercolour pencils and glitter glue.

I think I'll add a sparkly '21' to it too as Jacob's key worker at nursery, Rachel, is 21 on Saturday. And she likes a bit of bling! Oh to be 21 again eh?! I do tell her that I am old enough to be her mother which she thinks is hilarious as I don't feel old enough.. if you see what I mean!

• Backing papers: Funky Daze from Funky Hand
• Image: Stampin' Up from Jan
• Ribbon: From my stash
  
  

Hmmmm... Think Of Ice Cream!

It's a while since I entered a Stamp Something Challenge, but when I saw it was a sketch, well, I just had to! And here is my card! The image was very kindly sent to me by Jan who has recently become a Stampin' Up demonstrator (she sent me a few more so watch out for those!) And because it was such a cute image, I just had to use it! I've coloured it with watercolour paints and added a tiny bit of glitter glue in the centre of the flower.


The stripy backing paper is from Funky Daze which I have printed at A5 size so more detail is shown. The brownish card is from my stash, along with the grosgrain ribbon.

I've rounded all the edges and then they have been double inked - first in faded black and then in pink. And I think this card reminds me of ice cream!

• Backing papers: Striped from Funky Daze; plain, from my stash
• Image: Stampin' Up coloured with watercolour paints
• Ribbon: From my stash