Birthday Princess

At the Sugar Bowl this week, there is a sketch to follow and, as always, a fabulous prize is up for grabs for one lucky winner.
My entry uses the Sugar Nellie Manga Princess image, stamped in black onto white card and her hair and skin were coloured with Promarkers.   Her dress and tiara were paper-pieced using pretty My Mind's Eye paper with a subtle floral pattern.  

The petticoat was also paper-pieced but with white card which was sparkled up using Cotton Candy Stickles and the image was then mounted onto blue paper with foam pads for dimension before being cut around with decorative scissors.

The floral backing paper is a 6" x 6" sheet from the same MME pad, adhered to a cream tent fold card blank.   Aqua Stickles were rubbed over the embossed circle which had been cut with wavy-edged scissors to match the lower panel, before I added a rub-on greeting and placed a holographic 3D butterfly to hover daintily over the edge of the image. 

The inside was simply decorated with the leftover strips matted onto card leaving a narrow border. 
Hopefully the Birthday Princess for whom this card is intended will forgive me for neglecting to add any ribbons or bows, which was the Sugar Bowl optional theme, but I kind've ran out of room.

Willow Shopping

Well organised Willow, has already started her Christmas shopping and as you see, it looks like she has a very healthy spending habit - definitely my kind've girl!  She was one of 3 lovely Whiff of Joy Willow stamps I recently won - how lucky am I?  At least ... I'm pretty sure she's a Whiff of Joy stamp.

Quick Question: 

Does anyone else get mixed up over which of Elizabeth Bell's stamps are Whiff of Joy, Sugar Nellie, and Belles and Whistles or am I the only numpty?  I tend to avoid joining in with any of their blog challenges in case I use the wrong image.  How do you tell which is which?

Anyway ... I stamped Willow using Memento black ink and then paper-pieced her clothes and shopping bags before using Sakura glitter pens for the tissue paper.
Promarkers were used to colour her hair, skin and boots before adding an adhesive gem to her necklace for a little bitta' bling.

The square card blank was cut diagonally down the front and then papers from English Paper Company were cut to match the triangle shapes, matted onto textured cardstock leaving a narrow border and then added to the main card with double-sided tape.
The poinsettia flower was created by cutting simple petal shapes from red card and folding them in half before sticking onto a gold snowflake embellishment and adding some amber adhesive gems.
Willow is going to be submitted into the following challenges ...
Passion for Promarkers 53 - Anything Goes
Fab's Big Christmas Card Challenge 21 - Poinsettia and Diagonal Cut/Modern

"Bunny Friends"

That's the title of the Penny Black stamp I used to create these cards and I have to say that it ranks among my top 10 favourite PB cuties ... after the hedgies of course!
It is quite a large wooden stamp featuring 5 cute bunnies in flowerpots so, after stamping on linen effect card and colouring with Promarkers, I decided to chop it up to see if it was feasible to make 2 cards from 1 image.
The Papermania Spring Time pad was still sitting on the desk from earlier, so I matched cardstock to the colours of the paper I'd chosen and punched 2 scalloped circles. 

Then I doodled with green fineliner on one and pierced holes around the other for some detail before cutting out 2 of the bunnies and paper-piecing the flowerpots from a scrap of textured card.  This fits in quite nicely with One Stop Craft Challenge 74 which is Paper Piecing.
The Happy Easter sentiment was the freebie from Quick Cards Made Easy, (also still lying on the desk), and it was inked up with Brilliance Dew Drop Pearl Olive before matting it onto offcuts of card and adding some tiny flower gems.
For the 2nd card, I cut a square of lilac gingham card slightly smaller than the  purple cardstock and then cropped the corners before matting them together and adding some faux stitching with a white gel pen.

From the remaining purple card and some pretty pastel green spotty paper, I used the rotary trimmer to cut 2 strips of varying widths from each, with a deckled edge blade.
After overlapping them horizontally and vertically on the gingham card I added another 2 bunnies cut from the original stamped image and finished decorating with a few buttons and a lilac satin bow.

I must say I'm quite taken with the colouring on the textured card with the Promarkers - normally I stick to smooth cardstock - but the linen effect gives an interesting result and is something I will definitely try again.

For the first time in a long time I am able to join in with this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge.  Their theme "Check It Out" requires the use of checked paper or ribbons along with a PB image, so both cards are suitable as entries.
Our Creative Corner are looking for us to Break Out The Buttons, so my 2nd card qualifies for this challenge and Stampin' For The Weekend are asking for Ribbons and Bows so my tiny lilac bow sneaks me in there.
Finally, The Pink Elephant Challenge 60 is Pastels so I reckon either of these cards would work.
For the benefit of those who haven't seen the Penny Black Bunny Friends stamp in it's entirety - here you go!  

Definitely worth keeping a look out for if you don't already have it - if only for the cuteness factor.

Monday Monday

I must say a huge "THANK YOU" to everyone for all for the recent visits and lovely comments ... you do wonders for my ego! Please be patient with me until I get around to visiting all your blogs over the next couple of weeks as family life is pretty busy right now with the school holidays and hubby being home. I know many of you will understand but just don't want you to think I'm rude by not returning your kindnesses. I will eventually get round to you all.
My brother and his family are up visiting from England this week so we are spending some precious time with them before they emigrate to Australia in September. No doubt it will be a while until we see them again.

Following the disaster with Naomi's birthday card, I thought I'd show the replacement which sadly, isn't as nice as the one I destroyed ... but she liked it well enough so that's all that matters really and as she didn't see the original there was no disappointment.
The stamped image is 'Nellie and Foal' and I paper pieced Nellie but used Whispers Brush Markers to colour the foal and added a couple of dragonfly rub~ons that I thought were dinky.
Her favourite colour is purple so I chose various patterned papers and cardstock from my stash, with silver mirri card for layering and the observant among you will see that I once again followed last week's sketch from The Pink Elephant for the layout. Told you I'd be using it again.
Our Creative Corner Colour Challenge is to use purple this week so this will be my entry.

She enjoyed a busy birthday, especially as she had ten pin bowling training in the morning, but the most memorable moment was when she walked into her favourite restaurant that evening, expecting to sit down to a quiet family meal for 4 and was greeted by 18 family members singing 'Happy Birthday' ... well you can just imagine the surprise on her face I'm sure. It was just perfect. A memorable birthday indeed and I've no doubt she will treasure many magical moments of her special day in the years to come.
We're off to the cinema later this evening and tomorrow we are going to visit the The Falkirk Wheel so that should be a fun day out. We took the precaution of prebooking as there's so many of us and we didn't want to risk turning up and there not being enough room for everyone to make the trip. That would be a big disappointment.

Paper Piecing

Where on earth do the days go??
I'm sure someone is stealing them from me when I'm not looking!

I have to tell you that I really enjoy playing along with the challenges but time restrictions mean I don't always get a chance. However, I particularly wanted to join in with Simon Says Stamp Paper Piecing Challenge as I'm a "paper piecing virgin" ... or should I say WAS !!

I PaperPieced these 2 adorable characters using the Woodware Patchwork Giraffes stamp ... isn't it a cutie??
It was stamped onto both plain white card and then again onto patterned paper from Paper Cellar 'Spring' 6" x 6" pad.

I then doodled around the edge of the image with a black fineliner and added fringed strips of paper grass from the paper leftovers, before adding a few floral adhesive gems and a sentiment decorated with green gingham ribbon.
Just hope I'm not too late to join in this week.

Bootiful Bunny

Throughout November 2008, Sally at Bootiful Stampz was running a daily 'Stamp Giveaway' and on Day 11, I was lucky enough to be selected as the winner of a 'Cup of Bunny' stamp.

With all the mayhem and Christmas Chaos I tucked the cute bunny stamp away and have only now managed to find time to play with it.

A DCWV Valentine Card Kit provided the paper and card used for paper piecing technique and I used a small heart punch to make extra balloons for the message.

The large pink heart was made from 2 overlapping punched ovals from a card blank.

The inside view shows the rest of the message and a small corner decoration.

**Sally is currently offering another opportunity to win a Bootiful Stamp so hop on over there and check out what you have to do.**