WELL!

After announcing my intentions to blog more regularly and join in with some challenges again, wouldn't you just know that the 'real world' would scupper those plans.
February flew past before I could even blink ..... March stomped in boldly and then charged out again taking Easter and Mother's Day with it ..... and as for April!   It's advanced at an alarming speed and is showing no inclination of slowing down any time soon!  
Sooooo ... I've decided to make some marks here before May makes it's presence felt or I get jumped by June.

Let's get things rolling with a card for
Crafter's Companion UK April Challenge - Flowers

I had printed off one of their free Valentine downloads, but never got around to actually making anything with it, so thought I'd just see if I could make it work for this challenge. 
Simple flower embellishments were made by cutting out some of the hearts and curling the edges. They make perfect petals when glued together to form a circle.  The large flower centre was made by snipping into one of the printed border strips and then gluing it onto a small punched circle ... both flowers were then decorated with a coordinating button to finish.   The fancy flourish doubles up as a very pretty leaf don't you think?  Hero Arts stamps provide the simple greetings and the little birdy gets a wing from half a leftover heart.

Inside is simply decorated with one of the downloaded backing papers matted onto black card and finished off top and bottom with pieces of the border strip. 
So there you are ... that's how you use a Valentine themed download for a flower challenge. I'd also like to submit to the following challenges...
Ladybug Crafts - Leap Into Spring 
Brown Sugar Challenge - Spring 
Crafts and Me Challenge - Spring Flowers 
Crafting For All Seasons - Floral Delight 
Allsorts - Spring Has Sprung 
Here are a few of the other cards I was busy with in February ... it was a fairly heavy month for special landmark birthdays with numbers on.

My Nephew became a teen

My Brother celebrated being 21 ... with 29 years experience!

For Naomi's bowling pal

Fizzy Moon For My Niece

A bit of Decoupage

**SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT**

I cannot finish without telling you that after 4 cancelled bookings since September 2012 due to bad weather, my 17 year old daughter Naomi finally got to do her Skydive from 10,000 feet on 23rd February 2013, raising well over £1000 for Edinburgh Sick Kids Foundation. 

Proud doesn't even come close!

If you'd like to see the awesome footage click on the photo.  The music is muted so as not to breach copyright.

Springtime Has Sprung ...

... or so we are reliably informed by the weather forecasters and if today was anything to go by then they may be right ... for once.  We certainly had a good dose of sunshine today with only one brief shower and the temperature reached double figures so it's all good.
I spent this afternoon making a couple of cards for birthdays which are looming on the horizon. 

The first one for my eldest brother, used the lovely bird silhouette again from My Graphico but this time I wanted a more masculine look so it was printed onto plain white card and then matted with black.  I cut away a portion of the base card front, trimmed it slightly and then mounted it onto a slightly larger piece of black card before re-attaching it onto the back panel of the base card. 

Another strip of black card was embossed with my Cuttlebug Birthday embossing folder and this was then layered on top with some knotted silver/black checked ribbon for decoration.
Daring Cardmakers Challenge "Tweetie pie" asks that we use birds on our creations this week so I'm entering this card.

My daughter's friend celebrates her 15th birthday tomorrow and as she is allegedly a 'Cupcake Queen' it was the obvious choice to make her a cupcake card.  

I matted a strip of embossed lilac card onto silver mirri card and then laid it across the pretty floral patterned paper.  White satin ribbon, overlaid with some narrow pink velvet ribbon - very tactile - was wrapped around the embossed panel before adding the cupcake and frame which were freebies from a magazine last year. 
Hopefully this card is ok for Charisma Cardz Challenge "Something For The Kids" - (not sure the young lady it is intended for will appreciate being referred to as a kid but hey ho!) - and the current Kaboodle Doodles Challenge is "Happy Birthday" so I can sneak in there too.

Finally, I'd like to show a wee card I made whilst in York - can't believe that was a whole month ago!
Irene brought her cute Cuddly Buddly rainbear stamp with her and was giving us a tutorial on how to use poly pencils and she also allowed us to play with her Nellie Snellen multiframe dies (which seem to be all the rage at the moment) - please note that the blotchy fur look was intentional LOL! 

The bright blue and yellow papers just shout 'Spring' to me so I'm entering this card into the following challenges:
The Pink Elephant Challenge #58. 
Crazy 4 Challenge - C4C29
Lots To Do Challenge #11
The Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #75
Rosie-D's Challenge #66
Allsorts Challenge #44 

I overlaid the blue negative from the die cut frame onto a yellow square of paper to decorate inside the card - waste not ... want not.

Invitations

I received a call the other day asking if I would make some invitations for a 90th birthday celebration.  The only brief I had to follow was to "keep it simple and incorporate green". 
Hope this fits the bill ...
The perched birds silhouette image is a freebie from My Graphico so after creating a green background paper in PSP (Paint Shop Pro), adding the image and printing it onto smooth A4 paper, all that was left to do was some matting onto black card and add a band of cream ribbon to match the cream base card - simples!  

The text inside was also done in PSP, although it would've been just as easy to do it in Word and then print onto the background paper - which you'll see shows a larger, faded version of the silhouette birds.  I have blurred the personal details for privacy but you get the gist.

After using the free image, the least I could do was enter My Graphico's most recent challenge - #40 Vintage - as I think the background paper has a sort of vintagey look about it, but even if it's not suitable, it's always nice to show how you have used a company's products, (especially if they're free), don't you think?
I stumbled upon a couple more challenge blogs whose current theme is GREEN so I'm sneaking in there too. 
The Pixie Cottage Challenge Blog
For Fun Challenges

Tropical Bird & Christmas

Don't worry folks ...
... not on the same card!
This cute little image was a free download from PolkaDoodles but unfortunately I'm too late to enter their challenge despite the extended deadline ... the week just ran away with me I'm afraid.
I used my trusty Whispers Brush Markers to colour the image and added a touch of narrow lilac ribbon and some 'faux stitching'. Click the photo to see the detail.
The pretty papers and the epoxy sticker were from a scrapbook pack bought at our local Poundland ... a great bargain as there was loads of goodies crammed in the pack and decent quality too.

The Christmas cards are following Fab's Christmas Challenges from the beginning of the year in an effort to catch up, (with the intention of having a tidy wee pile ready and waiting before December).
I may not do them all in order but these are the first 2 from January.

Fab's Challenge #1 ~ Ice Blue & Sparkle
The papers were included in a RAK from my mega-talented friend Tiggertastic, (if you visit her blog you will see what I mean!), and the snow scene image was recycled from one of last year's cards and matted onto silver mirri card.

The extra sparkle was added using a Quickie Glue Pen and glitter.

Fab's Challenge #2 ~ 3D Embellishments
The HoHoHo paper was included in a free download from Funky Fairy's Inspirations and the blue glitter paper was included in the Pick'n'Mix selection from The Works.
The embossing was created using the Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder and the Santa embellishments were from a very old QVC kit, simply mounted with foam pads onto mirri card circles.
Like the majority of crafters everywhere, I'm having to tighten the belt quite a lot, so will probably be using up loads of old shopping channel kits between now and Christmas ... (much of which, to my shame, is still in boxes untouched) ... and I will be being much less impulsive about new purchases ... for a while anyway.

Tanda Stamps Teaser 87

The challenge over at Tanda Stamps this week was entitled "A Bird In The Hand" ... so I thought I'd enter this card which was the result of the first session I had with my new Cuttlebug.
(I know most people and their Aunties have had one for years but I was never known for being in vogue LOL)

I wanted to try all the folders at once ... as you do ... so hence the kind've 'mish~mashed' look.
The purple card has an almost velvety feel to it that wasn't obvious until it was embossed ... very strange.

Offcuts made dinky wee wings so even scraps were saved from the bin.

The patterned paper was included in a birthday gift from Sarah (aka Tiggertastic) and may be from one of the Laura Ashley collections.
I embossed some of it with the Perfect Paisley embossing folder and then cut out the 2 birdies from the impressions before attaching them with foam pads. If you click the image for a close up you can see the embossing on the birds more clearly.
The embossed message was one of the With Love border folders so I used 3 folders for one card ... a bit greedy huh?
A gel pen and gold Pearl Pen helped with highlighting.