Creative Inspirations challenge - Male card

The new challenge on Creative Inspirations is for a Male card for Father's Day or a birthday following Maxine's sketch (below). I was in a panic to get this one done as yesterday was soooo busy, so apologies for not sticking rigidly to the sketch! Still quite pleased with the result though and glad to have another male card to add to my stock.

Embellish Something

Our challenge this week on Stamp Something is 'Embellish Something', the Design team were given some chipboard , patterned paper and ribbon from My little Ribbon shop to work with, I used the chipboard heart and the gingham ribbon with the green patterned paper, and teamed that with stamped flowers from Clare Curd's Signature Range of stamps and added some black buttons from my button jar, I also punched 3 little flowers from black card and added flat backed green pearls to them.

I only just took the card downstairs to photograph when a friend turned up to buy some 'end of term' presents and cards and she snapped it up at once!

Wings and things

This weeks challenge on the Allsorts challenge blog is "WINGS" ........ Butterflies, Dragonflies, Angels, Fairies, Birds, Bugs or even Planes, anything with wings. So when I was playing with Alcohol inks at the weekend I did a card for the challenge with another of my new sets from Lavinia Stamps.



Once again the backing paper is from K&Co and the gorgeous textured gold cardstock from Southfield was decorated with my Martha Stewart border punch. The wing stamp is from a Hot off the Press set called Flights of Fancy.
The fairies are stamped onto white card which has been inked around the edges and is then overlaid with acetate which I used alcohol inks to colour. I quite like the effect - what do you think?

Had the weekend off!

It was lovely to have the weekend off and nothing particular to do. Other than a girly night with some of my friends on Saturday and my lovely daughter Lynsey coming for dinner today, I had no agenda so I took care of a little (tiny) bit of housework, some washing and ironing - the bare minimum you understand :) and the rest of the weekend I spent playing with distress inks and alcohol inks.

I had to make a retirement card for my youngest son's nursery teacher - Evan is now 13 so has long since left nursery behind but he still remembers Mrs Waugh and it was lovely to be asked to make a card for her from her colleagues.



I decided to follow a sketch from Sunday Sketch and Stamp for the card and to use a new stamp I got at the Stamp show at Edinburgh Corn Exchange the other week. It is from Lavinia Stamps and it is called Chinese Lantern.



The background papers are by K&Co and the sentiments are from a little set by River City. I coloured the image with Promarkers and used Diamond Glaze over the colour. The edge of the card was inked with distress inks.

Stamp Something

This week on Stamp Something the fun new challenge is sponsored by Paper Makeup Stamps and its owner and creator, Katie, has donated some yummy blog candy, and gave the DT some great images to play with.

The challenge was to use black, white and one other colour, my image was Katie the Make Up Fairy and this is what I did with her.



I started with Black Magic Core-dinations card, I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder and distressed it to show the green, I then used some Memories Mists to colour my white card and stamped it with a little Woodware flower stamp. The ribbon is from DCWV, the flower is a couple of Prima's held together with a large brad which I altered with some black embossing powder and black stickles. Finally the sentiment also came from Paper Makeup.

This week's winner will win 4 of Katie's fab images, so go on over to the Stamp Something blog and try the challenge.

Let it Snow??

I looked round the other day for a challenge which appealed to me, I usually like to do that rather than do the same ones each week, and I found this new challenge blog : Winter Wonderland. Now I do know it's only June but you have to get started with Christmas sometime don't you? So here is my first Christmas card for this year - hope you like it!



I used Basic Grey backing paper, Miss Anya 'Snow' coloured with promarkers and glitter, pearlescent card from Southfield (for the snowflakes) and sticky backed gems from Woodware.

Not a card!

This time on Creative Inspirations the challenge is to produce 'anything but a card' so I have chosen to make this mini book, it is made from 1 sheet of 12"x12" patterned paper and folded to create a 'meander book', you'll find a tutorial over here. I think it makes a really cute little 3"x3" book.

Another 'Dog Gone' challenge!

This weeks challenge at Stamp Something is sponsored by Dog Gone Stamps, they have some really fun character stamps and they provided the Design Team stamps for the challenge as well as the prize for this week's winner - 8 stamps from their range - and the winner gets to choose which ones. Definitely worth a shot!
Anyway the challenge is a sketch this week provided by a previous DT member Emily Weems



and here is my card



The backing papers are K&Co, the little heart buttons are Trimmits, the heart charm I picked up at the Art Stamps show at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh last weekend but I don't know the make, the sentiment was in the free set from the recent issue of Creativity magazine and the image is DT Pup from Dog Gone Stamps.

No challenge this time

Sometimes it's nice to make a card just cos you feel like it and this one fits neatly into that category. I made it because I just love the stamp and have waited quite a while to get hold of it. It is called 'Falling Softly' by Stamps Happen and I think it's just gorgeous!

I've been so busy at work and unable to leave the shop this week as my colleague Jeanette is off on her hols - hope you're having fun Jeanette! Tomorrow we're having a demonstrators get together in the evening and I've got try to arrange a schedule of events - workshops, demos, make & takes etc - for the rest of the year so looking forward to that.

Anyway I'll leave you with my card for now, have a good evening everyone!

Excellent news this week

I was really over the moon this week to have been chosen for the Stamp Something Design Team - thanks so much for picking me Erin and Denise, I know you had a ton of entries for the DT and you must have had your work cut out narrowing it down to the five of us!

Our first challenge as a new team is Something Old, Something New and we had some gorgeous "Here Comes the Bride" digital images from My Grafico to play with, I have used the beautiful wedding dress as my image and here is the card I made -



I coloured the dress bodice with Promarker then added some stickles for a bit of sparkle and I also doodled with a clear Sakura Glaze pen to make the pattern/texture on the dress. The backing paper and ribbon came from Southfield, I punched the flowers from some coloured vellum and altered brads for the centres, the sentiment was from Pink Petticoat. I was pleased with the way the card turned out - I hope you like it too!

Sugar Bowl Challenge

I made this card for this week's Sugar Bowl challenge following the awesome sketch by Lia - so many layers and shapes!



This is my card, using my newest Gorjuss Girl.



I used backing papers from Southfield, coloured the image with Promarkers and finished it off with Anna Griffin Ribbon.

Back later with some exciting news.......