365 day 14: DIY

Today's challenge on 365 is DIY: make a flower embellishment out of paper.

I've seen hand torn flowers before, but never tried to make one, but took the plunge. I roughly tore 'circles' and randomly cut into them around the edges - you can see what I've done much better if you click on the picture. Considering it was a first attempt, I'm fairly pleased with the way my flower has turned out. I was going to cut flowers on the cricut, but I thought that was cheating.

The pink spotted paper is Anna Griffin and the dark paper is HOTP.

365 day 13: Festive Friday

Yesterday's challenge on 365 was to make a birthday card with the colours red, blue and yellow. 'so go to it and show us your primary colors'.

Supplies for this card are all Basic Grey:

Orange delights!

I received two sets of super orange inchies today from the March swap on BF, organised by Karen. I was fortunate enough to have set sets because I joined in twice to make up the number. So look what I received:

Salt: Friendship (sponsored challenge)

There is a very special challenge today on our Salt blog - you can find out all about it here. It's lovely to see the contributions, especially from the new team members. Please pop over and have a look and perhaps join in the challenge.

I wanted to make a LO for this, but I just couldn't find the photo I wanted to use, so in the end I ade a card and now I'm glad I did.

The background paper is Sandylion Friendship word and speaks for itself.

I printed the verse from Proverbs (it's The Message version) - oh what fun I had with getting that printed in the right place - I should have done it before I stuck the paper to the card, but I didn't, so I had to feed the whole card in and get it in the right place - a few sheets of paper later!

The quotation: 'of all the gifts life could send ...' is a stamped image - the stamp was kindly sent to me a while ago by a Salt friend - so very appropriate to use it here.

Simple Easter cards

I made batches of simple Easter cards this evening - all on white or ivory hammered card - the wording is computer generated and printed.

These ones have silver or gold crosses that I bought a couple of years ago and found so fiddly I didn't know why I'd bought them - so now I've used them all up (made 7 altogether):

And these have stamped images from the Easter See-Ds:

I'm linking again for the Crazy Amigo 'simplicity' challenge and some more for this week's ABC.

Post it note holders

Just a few more bits made for tomorrow.

You can see them better if you click on the pictures.

Cutie Sunday sketch: Easter cards

I needed to make some more quick Easter cards - I found this sketch on Cutie Sunday:

This was just right to make a batch of similar cards. The background papers are a mixture of PM and Making Cards, with some Poundland blingy 3d stickers.#

Easter is also the theme this week on ABC, so I'm linking there.

Here come those fairies again ...

... or are they sprites? Anyway, whatever, I seem to have loads of pictures similar to these, so here are three very quick cards that incorporate 'wishes', fitting into the TGIF challenge 75: make a wish.

Sympathy cards

I needed to make some more sympathy cards for my box, so I found a piece of vellum with lillies - I cut into four so that I could make the four cards and ran it through my xyron, but the cartridge run out just before the end of the vellum, which is why two cards have shorter pieces and I've filled the gap with a 'with sympathy' peel off.

Challenge 19 on One Stop Craft this week is 'sorry', so I'm linking these to that.

A couple of the cards are a pale green background, one is an ivory colour and the other cream, so the vellum looks a bit different on each, but not much different on here.

Simplicity: a big move

Saturday is now creeping up on me and I'm not feeling like crafting (with other things going on in the background and just generally not feeling up to another much).

However, I have a few gaps in my boxes and one of them is for 'new home' cards.

It so happens that today's challenge on 365 is 'a big move' and so I've made two cards that are appropriate for this.

They are very simple, so I'm also linking for Crazy Amigo's challenge: 'simplicity'.

The more I look at this one, the more I realise that the copics have smudged - I thought I'd used the right ink pad, but may be not (I'd already stamped the image a week or two ago). I think I might replace it tomorrow before the card goes into the box, but you get the general idea of what it will look like.

I need to make some sympathy cards next.

How come?

How come I received this birthday present a few days ago, with instructions not to open it until today?

It's because it's the forum birthday today on Crafts by Carolyn - the forum is seven today! Happy Birthday to everyone at CBC and a big thank you to Carolyn, Paul, the mods and everyone who makes it a great forum.

And this is what I received inside the package from my secret Birthday fairy:

Lovely papers, ribbons and brads - and different to anything else I've already got. Thank you Birthday fairy!



If you've never visited CBC before, why not do so today - what a great day to join a forum - on its Birthday!

Salt: New Design Team Announcement

We are thrilled on the Salt blog to be able to announce our new Design Team - you can read about it here.

And in future, Salt is going to go live every Thursday at 10:00 GMT.

And please check back on Saturday 14 March for a very special challenge.

Patchwork card -giving it all you've got

Day 11 on 365 cards is: giving it all you've got - using five different patterned papers and five embellishments.

I used the Michelle's sketch on A Spoon full of sugar challenge 42:

and also comined this with the current DCM challenge: it's a patchy one.

The papers are various offcuts and the sentiments are DCWV Far East chipboard, which themselves are mounted on to DCWV Far East paper (that's the fifth PP). Flowers and butterfly (my five embellies) are PM.

The photo had to be slanted because of flash reflection - might replace in the morning.

Notebooks

I've now finished the notebooks I started last night - the BIA is such a useful little machine - I love it and wonder why I don't use it more than I do.

The first one fits the bill for week 6 challenge on Colour Create to use orange, yellow and green - with the option to come up with something other than a card.

This beautiful picture was shared as an inspiration for the colour scheme:

So here is my first notebook:

And this week's challenge 5 on The Pink Elephant this week is 'pink, green and brown', so this one is for that:The next notebook fits the current challenge on Created byhand: blue and green combo - and also Cute Card Thursday 50: wine and dine:

And here's another that qualifies for the Created byhand 'blue and green combo:

And here's the rest of them:

A commissioned notebook

When the lady came today to do our cleaning, she saw the notebooks that I'm preparing for Saturday and she asked if I could make one for her grandson's Christening, so here it is (you can see it bigger if you click on the picture):

Now I must finish off the other notebooks - I've bound them all in the BIA, just need to add bits to the fronts - I'll come back and show them later.

Watch this space ...

... for the new Salt team that will be announced very soon - we have lots of new members joining us.

And a surprise challenge is on its way ...

Nothing to show but ...

... ten notebooks in process - watch this space tomorrow.

I've prepared ten covers and papers for notebooks - punched the holes with the BIA, just need to put the wires in and don't trust myself to do that tonight without making mistakes. I've decorated some of the fronts for the notebooks, so I feel I've made reasonable progress with them.

Fruit moo

Following on from the previous post where I showed a card using a photo of apples, I couldn't resist making a moo for this week's Make a moo or two: 'fruit and vegetables' - I hope I'll be forgiven for concentrating on fruit and not veg.

It's difficult to get a decent quality of photo of something so small - it really is 1.1" x 2.8" - and that's quite small!

I might try later to incorporate it into a card.

For now, I need to have a break because my back is so painful and my head feels too heavy.

Picture this

The challenge for day 10 on 365 cards is 'picture this': ' Use a family photo, a photo of your pet, or a scenic photo - any one you choose, and include a sentiment to match.'

My choice of photo may seem a strange one, but quite some time ago I took some photos of apples in response to a prompt on HS:MS:HS - I used to regularly take part in this, but haven't for a while now - must try and get back to it soon.

Anyway, back to today's card. I used the photo of apples, mounted on to silver mirri card and then mounted that on to a light apply green card on which I randomly stamped and silver embossed. The quote was printed on my dymo letratag with clear tape (you can read the quote if you click on the picture to make it larger).

BF Dragon CJ

Having joined the new CJ group on BF last month, the next one needs to be posted on Saturday 14 March, which, of course, is when I'm having my Tearfund sale. I needed to get this done, so I set aside some time this morning - then I can concentrate on things for Saturday.

Leigh has made a superb CJ about Dragons, but I confess that when I first saw it I wasn't sure what on earth I was going to do for this.

Thanks to DCWV, this has come together OK - I hope Leigh will like it.

The papers are Far East, the epoxy stickers are Once upon a time, plus clipart picture and info from the internet:

Vintage hat

Last night I started making some notebooks - I got as far as covered the fronts of some, including this one which fits challenge 51 on My Time to Craft 'hats' and also the current challenge on Kaboodle Doodle of 'vintage'.

The background paper is DCWV and the image is a glittered rub on (can't see the glitter on here, but it adds a subtle sheen of pink and green to the hat and bow. I added a couple of gems on the hat and bow, as well as in the flower centres:

Although the notebook hasn't yet been finished I thought I'd show it now before the next challenge goes up on My Time to Craft.