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Monday, 5 September 2011

Celebrating 60 years

Regular visitors to my blog might remember that about ten days ago I made a commissioned Diamond Wedding Anniversary card. The card I've done today is from us for the same couple.

I've used similar paper to the commissioned card (which you can see here), once more using the top left hand corner of a 12 x 12 paper - PM orante snowflake metallic (didn't realise when I chose it that it was snowflake - hope it doesn't look too Christmassy!).

The flower is Craftime and the various hearts are from stash. All the foiled elements are silver (not black as they look here). The embossed sentiment says Happy Anniversary, of course, only just visible here.

Colours are for A gem of a challenge 29 photo inspiration:


This is for:

Deep ocean 7: hearts
Alphabet: P for pretty pastels
Cute card Thursday 180: a pinch and a punch (punched hearts)
Ooh-la-la 88: anniversary
Shabby tea room 78: pink wedded bliss
Stamp n doodle: anniversary
Designed2delight Saturday challenge: wedding or anniversary
Little Claire designs 12: wedding/anniversary
4 crafty chicks 53: celebrate
Cooking it up with Katie 73: make a pink, blingy sticker (hope the peel off numbers count)
Truly scrumptious 64: rocked up pink
Fussy & fancy 1000 follower celebration challenge using the Fussy & Fancy colour scheme
Pile it on 36: B for bling
Scrappy frogs: time for some bling
Posted by at 36 comments:

Sunday, 4 September 2011

Autumn birthday

This is for the sketch on Celebrate the occasion 28:



With autumn on the way (where was summer?) it's time to start thinking of colours of orange, brown, red, etc, so these are what I've concentrated on for this card. Day 187 on 365 cards: past, present and future, asked us to use an item from the past (the K & Co script paper that has been in a box for years now, also the blingy leaf), favourite colours at present (autumnal) and an upcoming event (birthday). The colours are also for:

Craft us crazy 16: autumn colours
Polka doodles 35: autumn leaves
Secret crafter Saturday 150: the colours of autumn
Die cuttin' divas 30: fall colours

This is also for:

Little darlings 6: ruffles or pleats
Whoopsi Daisy: let's bling it (this started off for last week's 'autumn colours' challenge, but I was too late for that, but the autumn leaf is very blingy!)
Scrappy frogs: time for some bling
Birthday sundaes 25: birthday card
Happileigh 37: birthday
LiaStampz 2: birthday
Creative card crew: anything goes
The paper shelter 29: anything goes
Posted by at 31 comments:

Asters (well, one, actually .. or is it?.)

On Daring cardmakers this week the theme is Asters or morning glory, as they are flowers associated with September.

I thought I would experiment further with my Hougie board, having successfully made the big rosettes I showed yesterday. I found up an offcut piece of flowery paper (no idea where it originally came from) and scored it in half cms. I thought it might look more realistic to cut into the 'petals' instead of leaving them looking more like rosettes. Not sure that it looks much like an aster really, but hey ho!

The challenge on 365 cards day 183 is Imagine this: wrinkled - I have a box of lots of crinkly handmade papers that haven't been used for years, so I decided to dig one out - I chose this shiny wrinkled pink paper (terrible to get a photo because of the shine). I mounted this on to a 7 x 5 card and finished off with a piece of card candy in the centre of the flower, stem and leaves with stitched ribbon and the birthday sentiment.

This is also for:

My time to craft 155: in full bloom
PaperPlay 35: make your own flowers
Craft your days away 28: make your own flowers
Lothian crafts 18: handmade flowers
Birthday sundaes 25: birthday card
Happileigh 37: birthday
LiaStampz 2: birthday
Jules always with a heart crafty snippet challenge 35 (paper for the flower was from my offcuts)
Creative card crew: anything goes
The paper shelter 29: anything goes
Posted by at 21 comments:

Recipe for happiness

For this card I've used the sketch for Stamp with fun 126:

This is for House mouse 103: no cookin' recipe card, using a Meljen's digital image printed on to the House Mouse computer tutors stamped image, which was coloured with copics.

The recipe says:

Recipe for happiness
- 1 cup of friendship
- lots of love
- endless servings!

Papers are 7 gypsies Baja journey - I chose these for Altered Alice September: week 1 chapter 7: text as nonsense.

I've used three patterned papers, two embellishments (ribbon and gems) and one image for Woodware USA 41: it's a 3-2-1 challenge, also for My mum's craft shop 21: 1-2-3 it's easy as ...

The theme of the card is friendship for Sundays with Crissy 21, Do you stack up 35: friendly critters, and 2 sisters 55: friends.

The pastel colours are for Stampin' sisters in Christ 105: nothing bright - quiet colours, also for Alphabet: P for pretty pastels.

This is also for:

365 cards day 186: pick a pattern - made by the gems on the ribbon
Poodles parlour: animal antics
Stamptacular 127: the sky's the limit
Creative card crew: anything goes
The paper shelter 29: anything goes
Stamp dreams 97: anything goes
Posted by at 33 comments:

CAS white space with metal

This card uses the sketch for the white space challenge for day 184 on 365 cards:

It's also for Less is more week 31: metallic - I've used two metal embellishments which I got from the 99p store.

I used two faux lace stamps from Anna Griffin with stazon vibrant violet, repeating across the card and the half nestie shape at the bottom, edging the shape with the ink pad. I used the faux lace stamps for The stampsmith challenge 21: fabulous faux.

This is also for Stamptacular 127: the sky's the limit
Posted by at 14 comments:

Saturday, 3 September 2011

Birthday cupcakes

For this card I've used the sketch for Sketch Saturday 171:

It's also for Birthday sundaes 24 inspiration photo:

The challenge for The paper variety 49 is to make a paper project with a birthday theme and add a banner, so this is also for that.

The background paper is from an English paper company pack - I stamped directly on to this using a bunting stamp from Forever Friends springtime set, curving it on the acrylic block and stamping twice to make the line of bunting, which was then coloured with promarkers. This is for Our creative corner: stamp happy, stamp on to patterned paper; also for Passion for promarkers 115 theme: anything goes, and I love promakers 81: anything goes.

The cupcake image is a digi from The paper shelter 'tea time' set which I won for their challenge 26, so I'm linking this for The paper shelter 29: anything goes.

This is also for:

Happileigh 37: birthday
The stamping boutique: come celebrate with us in September - birthday project
LiaStampz 2: birthday
Bee crafty September 54: beautiful borders/fantastic frames
Cardmakin mamas 28: digi images and/or papers
Stamp something: September digi day
Meljen 74: no patterned paper
Posted by at 24 comments:

Rosettes for school

When I went out to lunch recently with a friend who is the head of a local infants school, she wanted to go to Hobbycraft to see if they sold rosettes that she could use for 1st 2nd and 3rd places at school. We had a look, but there was nothing ready-made that would be suitable, so I boldly volunteered to make them.

We bought three Making memories Glitter Bling self-adhesive frames, in gold, silver and brown. These are lovely and were just the right size to fit the rosettes I wanted to make.

I used my Hougie board to score the lines for the folds of the rosettes. Because I wanted to make each rosette with a 6" diameter, I used two lengths of paper 3" wide and about 11" long and stuck them together. For anyone who uses a Hougie board, I found that a good tip is to use a low tack masking tape to keep the paper in the right place while scoring.

I thought I'd got some matching gold, silver and bronze ribbons that would be suitable, but I found that I hadn't, so I used some creamy white ribbon that had gold foiled edging, swiping this with Brilliance galaxy gold, starlite silver and coffee bean (the nearest I'd got to bronze). I had to heat these and put them under a heavy box because they curled a bit with the heat, but they turned out OK in the end.

Now for the letters for 1st, 2nd and 3rd - I hadn't got enough letters in the appropriate colours, so I used thickers white chipboard letters, colouring with the three ink pads to match the ribbons and heat embossing with powders - this was very fiddly and I got lovely and inky, but it was worth the effort. Unfortunately, the 1st here looks almost brown, but irl it is a lovely bright gold.




I'm linking these for the following challenges:

Order of the opus gluei 112: everything's coming up roses and rosettes (I had to smile when I saw the challenge on Sunday)
Take time for you 48: everything except cards
Paper pretties 169: anything but a card
Wags n whiskers 62: anything but a card
Just some lines: anything but a card
Meljen 74: no patterned paper - solid cardstock only
Scrappy frogs: time for some bling
Rainbow lady 168: let's emboss it (the chipboard numbers)
The crazy challenge 82: new - new technique (to me) colouring ribbon with inks, new items used: the glitter bling frames
Delicious doodles 1: fresh start - something new (as above)
Sentimental Sundays 70: back to school
Crazy amigo: back to school
The stamping boutique 14: back to school
Pixie cottage 85: back 2 school
Pixie dust studio 90: school is cool
Stamp insanity 74: back to school
Crazy4challenges 103: back to school
If the shoe fits fashionista Friday 90: let's all head back to school
One stop craft 147: back to school - primary colours
Gingersnap GC116 colour challenge: primary colours - red, blue and yellow
Stamp n doodle: project containing 2 or more circles
Crafting misfit: show and tell
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CHNC challenge 36: no sentiment

Where has the week gone to? Those who regularly visit my blog may have noticed that I haven't made anything at all this week. Before that I went a bit mad for a couple of weeks making loads of cards. Somehow this last week has gone by and I just haven't got round to crafting, partly because other things have been more important and partly because I haven't felt like it.

Anyway, it's time for another challenge on my Craftyhazelnut's Christmas challenge blog - and this time I'm being sponsored by Di's Digi Downloads - a randomly picked winner will be able to choose five digi images of their own - and there are so many gorgeous digis to choose from - just click on the link and see the gorgeous selection. What better time to join in my Christmas challenge?! Just head over here to enter.

For challenge 36 I'm asking you to make any Christmas card, but do not include a sentiment on the front of the card.

I've used Di's 'Merry mice' image - isn't it lovely?! Having chosen my papers - from My mind's eye Christmas glitter book - and made my card I realised that it could look as if I'm cheating because the words 'Merry Christmas' are visible at the top of the card, but it's part of the background paper, so I'm allowing it - lol! If you want to do something similar that's fine by me, but please don't actually add a specific sentiment/greeting to your card.

For my card I used the sketch given for Christmas challenges with sketches 8 - to see the sketch and join in please click on the link.

I coloured the image with copics, cut out with a nestie and added three brads that have been in my Christmas box for about three years (I think they are DCWV, but not sure). You can't really see it here, but I've applied glossy accents to the lanterns.

This is also for:

Christmas crafting 3: sparkle
Christmas inspirations 32: Christmas card with glitter
Scrap-cards 11: Christmas
Divas by design 9: Christmas in August
For fun challenges: it's Christmas in August
Glitter fairies 2: Christmas cuties
Poodles parlour: animal antics
Cardmakin mamas 28: digi images and/or papers
Stamp something: September digi day
Clearlyistamp 35: patterned paper
Sweet stampin': anything but birthday
Daisy doodles 41: anything goes
The paper shelter 29: anything goes
Creative card crew: anything goes
Party time Tuesday 31: anything goes
Simon says: anything goes

Posted by at 29 comments:

Wednesday, 31 August 2011

BF August ATC swap

No crafting here since Saturday - back has been playing up a lot, feeling rotten atm - but I thought I'd show the ATCs I received today from the August swap on the Bubbly Funk forum. The theme was 'a quote/a saying' - what a lovely lot of crafting from some special friends.
Click to enlarge

Posted by at 1 comment:

Saturday, 27 August 2011

Fashions fade, style is eternal

'Fashions fade, style is eternal' (Yves Saint Laurent).

This card is very similar to the previous one.

This is for:

Colour create 78: kraft, red and white/cream
Crafty purple frog: hot ... red hot
Scrappy frogs: time for some bling
My time to craft 154: here come the girls
Happileigh 36: girly girls
Ooh-la-la 87: no backing paper
Digi doodle 73: anything goes
Aud sentiments 35: anything goes
Lothian crafts 17: anything goes
AiFactory: August anything goes

Posted by at 16 comments:

A woman should be two things ...

... classy & fabulous (Coco Channel) - that's what it says done the side of the card.

I've used Kanban toppers deoupaged. These have some red foiling on them that compliments the Craftime red glitter strip and the sentiment.

This is for:

Colour create 78: kraft, red and white/cream
Shopping our stash 14: red or ribbon or roses
Crafty purple frog: hot ... red hot
Scrappy frogs: time for some bling
Sarah Hurley 48: bling & sparkle
Charisma cardz 34: glitter it
My time to craft 154: here come the girls
Happileigh 36: girly girls

Posted by at 14 comments:

A relaxing birthday

It's a bit ironic making and showing this card because our bathroom still hasn't been completed - there have been lots of hitches along the way and we're still waiting for all the little finishing bits and pieces to be done. Our bath has been replaced with an enclosed shower unit ... but we can't use it yet!

Simply a Kanban embossed topper with sentiment, mounted on to a gold mirror mat, matted on to a shaped card.
This is for:

Spoon full of sugar 162: happy birthday
CCEE 1124: gold
Dezinaworld: golden
Mami doodles 32: shaped card
Squigglefly 112: waterworks
Scrappy frogs: time for some bling
Papertake: dies to die for
The paper shelter 28: die cuts and punches
Jellypark friends: die cuts and/or punches
Ooh-la-la 87: no backing paper
Digi doodle 73: anything goes
Aud sentiments 35: anything goes
Lothian crafts 17: anything goes
AiFactory: August anything goes
Posted by at 17 comments:

Commissioned diamond wedding card

One of the members of John's blind bowling club will be celebrating his diamond wedding anniversary soon, so I was commissioned to make a card. I recently bought some 8 x 8 cards, so thought I would use one of those.

The main background paper is a corner cut from a PM foil paper 'brown blue ornate' and I printed the sentiment on a piece of matching PM foil 'blue vintage floral', cutting this with a nestie and mounting on nestie mirror card mats.

This was one of those 'awkward to photo' cards because of the foiling, so the strip across the bottom doesn't show up as it really is - it has a copper foiling and then turquoise mirror card to match the nestie mat. Fortunately, I had some gems that were just the right colour, but I had to colour silver 60 with a turquoise copic - so this is for iCoic lover 44: use copic to colour embellishments.

Flowers are Craftime with Poundland gems.

This is for:

Paper pretties Monday: blue, brown and choice (white)
Everybody art: brown/blue
Scrappy frogs: time for some bling
Little Claire 12: wedding/anniversary
Paper creations ink 7: show us your flowers
Sarah Hurley 48: bling and sparkle
Papertake: dies to die for
The paper shelter 28: die cuts and punches
Jellypark friends: die cuts and/or punches
Posted by at 15 comments:

CHNC challenge 35: build it up

It's Saturday again, which means it's time for a new challenge on my Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge blog. For challenge 35 I'm asking you to 'build it up' - perhaps by using decoupage or pyramage, or just by making sure you can at least 3 layers on your card. If you haven't started making your Christmas cards yet, now would be a very good time to start, so why not go over to my CHNC blog and join in?

For my card I've used some Jolly Nation decoupage, a piece of DCWV backing paper and a recycled piece of card that features the star, wrapped with some fancy gold twine.

Colour scheme: Jay Gee's nook 10: photo inspiration:


I'm entering this into the following challenges:

Divas by design 9: Christmas in August
Crafts4eternity R34: theme recipe: Christmas projects
Paper and such: farm animal challenge
Crafty creations 133: show us your inner animal
Paper cutz 106: wish upon a star
Digi doodle 73: anything goes
Aud sentiments 35: anything goes
Paper playtime 53: anything goes
Lothian crafts 17: anything goes
AiFactory: August anything goes

Update Friday 2 September: I've just discovered that having scheduled this post, I forgot to actually enter the card into the above challenges, most of which, of course, are now closed! - d'oh - what a prize idiot I am!!!
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Thursday, 25 August 2011

Baby boy

When I made the Jemima Puddleduck tag the other day I said that I would probably use it on a new baby card, so here it is. You can see how I made the tag here.

The gingham background and the spotty, scalloped border was part of a cupcake kit from QVC (no cupcakes in sight here!). I distressed the edges of the sentiment to match the tag.

This is for:

Phindy's Friday 69: something new (baby)
Creative Belli 124: gingham - the sentiment has been long forgotten
Crafts4eternity R33: embellishment recipe - tag
Simply create 50: time to distress
Sweet stampin: babies & little ones
CropStop 34: anything goes
Digi doodle 73: anything goes
Aud sentiments 35: anything goes
Paper playtime 53: anything goes
Lothian crafts 17: anything goes
AiFactory: August anything goes

Posted by at 21 comments:

Embossing ... or rather 'debossing'

John ordered me some Dreamweaver stencils for my birthday and they arrived this morning. I'd already got some embossing paste ready for using with them, but decided not to try this today as there is still chaos here with the bathroom being done and didn't want to bother to get bowl of water to put stencil in.

So, instead of using embossing paste, I decided to use the swirls stencil with my cuttlebug - followed the 'sandwich' I found here - and it worked brilliantly ... except that I put the embossed dotted card in the wrong way round, so I ended up with debossing on the right side instead of embossing, but I wasn't go to waste it, so I distressed the whole area by swiping it with stazon blazing red - so the debossed swirls didn't pick up the ink colour. I quite like it (although next time I'll try to remember to put the card the right way up).

The pink spotted paper is My Mind's Eye quite contrary summer and the ribbon is from stash, long forgotten about. The little sentiment is difficult to see here - it is 'just for you' - it was originally white and I swiped with blazing red and buffed for the silver to show through.

I rounded the corners for Pals paper arts 108 elements of style - soften the edges.

And the colour was inspired by the Lollipop ladies embossed cupcake picture:


The monochrome pink is also for:

Tanda teaser 178: monochrome
Truly scrumptious 64: rocked up pink

Also for:

365 cards day 178: buried deep - new stencil and 'never used' before backing paper
DDH week 13: dry emboss
Simply create 50: time to distress
Shopping our stash 14: red or ribbon or roses
Ribbon girl: project that features ribbon
Kaboodle 81: ribbons
Crafty sentiments: ribbons & bow
CropStop 34: anything goes
Aud sentiments 35: anything goes
Digi doodle 73: anything goes
Paper playtime 53: anything goes
Lothian crafts 17: anything goes
AiFactory: August anything goes
Posted by at 38 comments:

Happy school time

This is another quick sticky note holder, this time for a 'back to school' little gift, suitable for either teacher or child.

This is for:

Creative inspirations 66: back to school
Crazy challenge 81: back to school
Party time Tuesday 30: back to school
Use it Tuesday 14: back to school - the chipboard stickers from Poundland had been hoarded for a long while
For fun challenges: back to school
Papercraft star 59: back to school
Penny's 60: back to school
PaperPlay 34: back to school
Fairytale 22: first school day
2 sisters: back to school
Stamp insanity 74: back to school
Die cuttin' divas 29: for a special teacher
Your next stamp 49: fruit inspiration
Ooh-la-la 87: no backing paper
Challenge up your life 50: no patterned paper
Digi doodle 73: anything goes
Posted by at 31 comments:

Sticky notes holder

This is a sticky notes holder made with an offcut piece of card, decorated with a beautiful flower and a birdie twinchie that I made long ago - thought it was about time I used it. In fact, I searched on my blog and found that I made the birdie twinchie in May 2009 - wow! how time flies. The background was created with the shaving foam technique - you can read about it here.

Colours are for There she goes 121: be inspired:


This is for:

Hooked on craft 6: things with wings
Truly scrumptious 64: rocked up pink
Paper creations ink 7: show us your flowers
Ooh-la-la 87: no backing paper
Challenge up your life 50: no patterned paper
CropStop 34: anything goes
Digi doodle 73: anything goes
Nadia's challenge 12: anything goes
Stamp insanity 73: anything goes
Paper playtime 53: anything goes
Lothian crafts 17: anything goes
AiFactory: August anything goes

Posted by at 19 comments:

Black, white, silver and pink

This is a quick card with Anna Griffin papers and components for Just for fun week 30: black, white, silver & 1 other (pink).

This is also for:

Incy wincy 107: anything but a card
Take time for you 48: everything except cards
Creative craft: anything but a card
Dutch dare 127: anything but a card
Paper creations ink 7: show us your flowers

Posted by at 16 comments:

Wednesday, 24 August 2011

Kissing card ...

... no, not that kind of kissing - the stamped kissing technique. Creative sketches 44T technique challenge this week is 'kissing' - if you haven't come across this before you will find a link within the post at Creative sketches and if you Google you will find quite a few YouTube tutorials. I decided to join in this challenge, but, as you will see further down, this first card isn't for that after all.

I spent quite a time on this card, trying it out on rough paper first and then having to bin my first effort. Eventually, after having a lovely inky time I produced this card by inking the oval with Brilliance galaxy gold, inking the PM sunflowers stamp with memento rich cocoa and kissing this on to the oval. I then poured over detail clear powder and heat embossed. I chose the sunflowers stamp for this week's 'sunflowers' challenge on Inspiration Avenue.

As I was wanting to link this for Charisma 33: negative space (no more than a third of the card to be filled), I didn't add anything more to the card.

This is also for:

CAS-ual Friday 16: CAS that features embossing

Having done all this, I then suddenly realised that the challenge on Creative sketches wasn't just to use the kissing technique, but, of course, to follow the given sketch.

* * * * * * * * * *

So I made another kissing technique card using the sketch this time:

This time I inked up a Laura Ashley stamp with Brilliance galaxy gold and a little flowery stamp with memento rich cocoa, kissing these together, stamping and heat embossing with detail clear - I masked with a post-it note and repeated this twice more. I then stamped and embossed a little swirl stamp and the sentiment with rich cocoa.

You can't see the sheen of the embossing on this because it's a scan, but it shows the card a bit better than a flash photo in artificial light.

So I got there in the end with a correct entry for Creative sketches CS44T.

So this second card is also for:

Just some lines: embossing
Craft room: masking
Dezinaworld: golden
Ooh-la-la 87: no backing paper
Challenge up your life 50: no patterned paper
Little miss muffet 16: multiple images
Stampin' sisters in Christ 103: try something you might have been afraid to try before now - new technique
Woodware USA 40: try a new technique
Phindy's Friday 69: something new - new technique
Paper creations ink 7: show us your flowers
Polka doodles 33: single layer
Digi doodle 73: anything goes
Aud sentiments 35: anything goes
Nadia's challenge 12: anything goes
Stamp insanity 73: anything goes
Paper playtime 53: anything goes
Lothian crafts 17: anything goes
AiFactory: August anything goes
Posted by at 43 comments:

WOYWW 116

It's Wednesday again and that means it's WOYWW time - if you don't know what I'm talking about (is there anyone left who doesn't know?) just click on the link.

Mum bought me a Hougie board for part of my birthday present (well, to be truthful, I ordered it and she paid for it).

So far I've experimented with making rosettes. I need to make three large ones for a commission. I started with the small blue one, which was easy to make, but discovered that to make anything bigger I needed to prepare two strips and put them together - the pink one is about 6 inches across.

Thanks to all WOYWW-ers who left me comments last week. I tried to get round to everyone - managed to comment on lots, but apologise if I didn't get to all. I can't guarantee I will this time, but I'll try.
Posted by at 6 comments:
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