Bah! Humbug! 39

I missed last week's Bah! Humbug! Challenge as I wasn't feeling too great ... okay I was feeling sorry for myself and a wee bit bleurgh ... but my fellow 'Humbuggers' were very understanding and let me have the week off - thanks ladies mwah xx.
Didn't want to push my luck with them though, so made a little bit of an effort this week for the 'Cutie' Challenge.  (Emphasis on the 'LITTLE')
I have a gazillion different cuties in my stash so was a little spoiled for choice to be honest.  However I opted for these cute Forever Friends characters for 2 reasons.
* They were close at hand - didn't have to go delving 
AND 
* They are stickers - no effort required at all. 
PEEL AND PLACE ... job done!

The red foiled card is from Kanban and already beautifully embossed, so nothing to do there.  It was a left over strip from a previous project but was a smidgen too narrow, so to make it fit a DL card blank, I matted it onto gold mirri.  Clever huh?  The stickers were then popped onto scraps of gold mirri and cut around to give them a wee border before popping them, across the front with silicon glue, varying the height slightly.   

Then I grabbed some Star Dust Stickles and 'sparkled up' the letters, added the sentiment and ... FINALLY came the hard part - waiting for it all to dry!  
I have also 'sparkled up' their furry hat trims since taking these photos so they're even cuter.
Ann, Irene and our Guest Designer Jenny have put far more effort into their gorgeous Cute Creations, so you must visit and drool.  We also named the winner to last week's prize draw so pop over to see if it was you ... but if it wasn't,  don't despair.  We still have one more Monthly Prize to award in November and there may be a couple of random spot prizes making their way to surprise winners before 2010 closes.  There'll also be the winner of our Loyalty Prize Draw to announce in December for those who have managed to complete 30 of our 2010 challenges.  So all still very exciting!

Now I wonder if Mr. Blogger has reduced my followers list to a decent size yet so I can go visiting.   The thumbnails were absolutely humungous this morning (maybe been taking growth hormone?) so I could only see about 4 posts before the page ran out.  NOT good.

Bah! Humbug! Challenge 30

The theme 'Through The Window' this week at Bah! Humbug! has almost driven me to distraction.   Entirely my own fault though because I had, what I thought, was a brilliant idea and knew exactly what I would be doing for this challenge.   However, because I'd left it until the 11th hour to put my plan into action, when it all went horribly wrong, (as it inevitably does when you're in a rush), I had already run out of time so had to resort to a quick card instead.  Consequently, I'm not happy with the result ... BUT on a positive note, I have learned a valuable lesson and hopefully won't be so tardy in future!
Anyway, enough of my mishaps ... here's what I DID eventually do.

I traced around the edge of a Square Nestability die onto the inside front of the base card and then cut along the lines at the top and bottom with a craft knife and metal ruler.  I then cut down the centre and folded back the panels to create a window which opens.

Using the Cuttlebug to cut the largest Labels One Nestability from gold mirri card and cutting the same sized window as the base card, from the centre, gave me a frame.  After trimming a decorative edge with scissors, the frame was placed over the original opening and glued into place.

Metallic snowflakes, adhesive gems and a holly sticker were used to decorate around the frame and a greeting sticker was matted to gold mirri and added below the window.

When the window is fully opened it reveals a snowy scene and a cute Forever Friends character clutching a bunch of flowers ... ahhhhh how sweet.   I couldn't resist adding some Star Dust Stickles to the snowy tree for some sparkle but I'm afraid it isn't showing in the photo.
Ann and Irene have their own lovely ideas to show you for this week's Bah! Humbug! Challenge, so don't forget to check them out and if you need any further encouragement to join in with us, then there's a super stamp set up for grabs this week because it's our 1st challenge of the month.   Ooooooooooo you lucky ducks!   There's nothing to lose ... so c'mon over and have a go!

Christmas Card Frenzy

Here are a few of the cards I made this weekend ... they were orders for friends and used elements from QVC TSV (Today's Special Value) kits - and just in case you don't recognise them, they are characters from Forever Friends and Patchwork Pals.
Neither customer wanted anything too elaborate and fancy so they were quite quick to make but I confess to feeling the urge to add a ribbon or two or a wee sprinkle of glitter - how I managed to restrain myself to just 2 wee bows I'll never know!

There are more than enough left overs to make some more so I can satisfy those cravings to my hearts' content - if I can find the time, of course.

Forever Friends Christmas 2009

I received the auto delivery Forever Friends Christmas Kit from QVC a week or so ago ... (which I'd completely forgotten about until it landed!) ... so decided to break the seal and have a play today.
The image was coloured with Whispers Brush Markers and the papers are from last year so can't remember the collection.
The panels were cut with nestabilities and gold mirri card proved itself to be invaluable once again, although I think narrower borders would've probably looked nicer, so that's noted for next time.
It was the ideal opportunity to join in with another of and Fab's Christmas Card Challenges and Challenge #30 was Cute and Square so this qualifies on both counts.

I followed this weeks Sketch Challenge set by Iris over at Simon Says Stamp, although I have substituted snowflake embellishments for the flowers and decided not to offset the ovals as it just looked like I'd put it on squint and seriously needed to go to SpecSavers.

Anyway, hopefully they will forgive me and still allow me entry 'cos there's an extra-specially fabby-tabulous prize up for grabs in honour of Heidi's birthday and I really, really want it ... NAY NEED IT!
Ok I'm lying about needing, but I definitely want it and have even cleared a space especially!
Ha ha ha ! A girl can dream can't she??

Fancy Folds

Whilst browsing blogland last week I spotted various different versions of this interesting card fold so thought I would have a go and see what I could come up with.
I discovered several different names for this fancy fold and found a few tutorials out there, but the difficulty I have is that they were all by different people and as I didn't have time to follow a gazzillion links to discover who had the idea first I'm not sure who should get the credit, so if it was you (or you know for sure who it was), then please let me know and I will give them a mention.

As for the card ... well I did enjoy making it and it is definitely something I would do again, but cutting the front and back panel shapes from the designer paper was a little time consuming and you don't need to look too closely to see my cutting is not particularly precise.
Soooooooooo .... I took the liberty of creating simple templates for future use and hopefully that will speed things up and improve the finished look because (fingers crossed) the panels will be a better fit. That's the theory anyway.

The pretty papers are K. & Co. Blue Awning and they are double sided so perfect for this card where matching papers are needed for the different panels. Gold mirri card provides a narrow border and the cute Forever Friends image was cut from the packaging of some free stickers and mounted onto a leftover scrap of paper.
I hand wrote part of the greeting (as if you couldn't tell) with a Whisper Brush Marker but the textured card makes it look a bit squiggly so would probably opt for smooth card in future.
A sprinkling of prima flowers and some liquid pearls add decoration but I'm unsure whether I may have overdone it with this particular decorative paper as it all looks very busy.
Not to worry though ... I'll know better next time.

Felt nice to be playing with paper and glue again after so long.

Watercoloured Postcards and a Birthday

Todays 'Show and Tell' comprises of some watercoloured postcards which were stamped and coloured with Whispers Brush Markers, and a simple Birthday card using HOTP papers which are always a brilliant standby when the creative part of the brain has gone AWOL ... like mine did today.

Hopefully this is just a temporary glitch caused by the combination of yet more antibiotics and painkillers.

The fancy decorative edges on the birthday card, were courtesy of the Purple Cow trimmer recently purchased from QVC ... so much easier and quicker than decorative scissors I can tell you.

There's a busy weekend ahead, with the first ranking tournament of 2009 for Naomi's ten pin bowling being held in Stirling both Saturday and Sunday ... and in between there's the usual washing, ironing and other boring stuff, so if I'm not around then don't worry.

I think the plan is for hubby to take her through one day and I'll do the other day ... but we'll see how things go.
Hope you all enjoy a Wonderful Weekend anyway, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

Pink Elephant Challenge 3

Thought I'd join in again with The Pink Elephant Challenge this week ... can't believe I've played along for 3 challenges in a row, 'cos normally I struggle to remember until after the deadlines !!
Must be because I'm enjoying myself ... which is probably because, (unlike some other challenge blogs), they don't impose restrictions, preferring to concentrate more on the fun aspect of challenges and getting enjoyment from everyone's participation. Makes for a much more relaxed environment and it's amazing how much the creativity flow increases each week.

Challenge #3 was a sketch by DT member Carol and here's my take on it.

The textured card, letters and dotty card are DCWV and the image is a Forever Friends sticker which came as a free gift with Papercraft Inspirations magazine.

(Just thought I'd better mention that just in case you thought my colouring skills had improved dramatically ... ha ha).

A small circle punch and heart punch help to get maximum use out of the card offcuts to create a border below the image and discs for the letter stickers. The leftovers from that were then used to decorate inside.

The chipboard flourish is from the Dovecraft Fantasy collection, which was sanded and then coloured with ink to reduce the glaring whiteness.

Adhesive gems add just enough 'bling' without being OTT.

Selection Box

Thought I'd show what I've been 'pootling' with over the weekend.
Nothing to shout about really just a bit of colouring with Whispers Brush Markers on the embossed cards (part of an old QVC card kit) and one of the lovely Forever Friends stamps, with some silver peel offs for the sentiments.
The glittery flower card is a recyled birthday card from last year.

Quick and easy which suits me perfectly at the moment as my energy levels are well below zero.

Think Pink

Had some free time this afternoon and took the opportunity to make a couple of cards for my Grab'n'Go box.

The January Challenge for CA is to use PINK so out came some pink supplies from my stash and I settled down to play. I wanted to have a go at a card folding technique I saw in Issue 53 of Simply Cards and Papercraft called the Double Diamond Fold ... presumably because the side panels are supposed to be diamond shaped.

Because I didn't measure the original piece of card, the end result is not quite the same as in the magazine and I didn't add an extra diamond to the middle top part of the card like they did, but nevertheless I quite like what I ended up with.

My 2nd card uses a cute Forever Friends stamp.

I used Whispers Brush Markers to colour the image (should've gone a few shades lighter on teddy methinks) and the embossed flowers on the card blank before adding decoration to the scallops with a white pearl pen.

Some Prima flowers and a pink ribbon across the diagonal fill up the white space nicely.

A smidgeon of chalk around the embossing helps to reduce the starkness of the white card blank too.

Now I just need to decide which one I like best for the Challenge.