Flamboyant Colours

There's a section in my filing cabinet filled to the gunnels with card sheets from Kanban, so I had a root through them and found these flamboyantly colourful images ... enough to brighten up anyone's Sunday afternoon don'tcha' think?  
This would be the perfect image for Masquerade Ball invitations.

6" x 6"

5" x 7"

DL

Easel Card

Combined with some pretty paper from Papermania, snippets of coloured card stock and a couple of sentiment stamps - the result is a collection of 4 very different cards.  
I'm heading back to Pixie's Playground again this week to enter my easel card for their Snippets Challenge.   They're keeping a swing for me so would be rude not to go and play!
Would also like to enter Crafting When We Can- At The Movies ... obviously the movie would have to be Masquerade.

Finishing up for today with something a lot more subtle.

Another Kanban sheet but this time showing a cute wee girl with a fluffy bow bedecked sheepdog.  Adorable!  Some pink papers and ribbon are added to make a card suitable for any age and any occasion.  I'm going to enter it in the challenge over at That Craft Place where the theme is For A Child.

 

Flutterby Butterfly

Today's offering featuring beautiful 3D butterflies will hopefully encourage Springtime to make an appearance.  We could all do with a little less wind, fewer grey skies and a big helping of sunshine to brighten up our days.  Sadly, if the forecasters are correct, I fear we may have to rely on a good helping of imagination, at least for the next week or so.  To compensate I thought I'd introduce a little warmth with these 2 pretty cards.

The patterned paper squares were snippets hiding at the bottom of my scraps box ... leftover from a previous project but I can't recall where I got them or who the designer is.  

They compliment the butterfly stickers beautifully and, once matted onto slightly larger squares of black and gold, are the perfect size for the cream 5" square hammered card blanks.

The sentiment stamp from Inkadinkadoo is mounted onto layers of card diecut with Spellbinder Nestabilities. Fancy-schmancy flourishes were created from Marianne Design Dies.

If I've read the rules properly, I can submit both cards to Flutter By Wednesday's Challenge # 236 this week as there's no prize on offer.  In addition to the compulsory butterfly or fairy, they're looking for a sentiment ... got that covered.
The Wonderful Wings Challenge at Crafts 4 Eternity is still open until Friday, so will sneak in a 2nd entry with one of these cards and as I've used leftover papers I thought I'd pop across to Pixie's Crafty Workshop to play for the 1st time in the Snippet's Challenge.
Finally for today, is another new one for me ... the Card Mania Challenge where they want entries with Diecuts or Punches.

What a Hoot!

More playing today and my 2nd Christmas card of the year!

The lovely papers are from a Xmas stack by DCWV which has been in my stash for a long time and the cute ice skater is a digi image called "Ice Skating Hoot" from Pink Gem Designs.   He was coloured with Promarkers, before being cut out and mounted onto foam pads.  The addition of some fancy snowflakes and a dash of pink Stickles for his bobble hat give a touch of Christmas sparkle.

This week Winter Wonderland's Challenge is "Red and Green Must Not Be Seen" so Pink and Purple fit the bill.   Coincidentally, one of the challenge sponsors this week is Pink Gem Designs which I didn't know when I made the card ... isn't that a hoot LOL?
Crafts 4 Eternity are looking for "Wonderful Wings" and there's no doubt that Ice Skating Hoot has wings ... reckon they'll come in handy if the ice melts!

Pretty Flowers

Decided to be ruthless the other day and began bundling up all the craft magazines I have accumulated over the years with a view to getting rid.   Surprise, surprise! ... I came across some pretty My Mind's Eye papers tucked inside a pile of mags hiding under the bed.  So I picked out a couple of sheets of my favourite design and made a few cards. 
 
The first is a Get Well card for my daughter's school friend who is recovering from recent surgery.  I cut a panel of paper and adhered it to a DL card blank.  The cute bear image reminds me of Boofle and was recycled from a 2012 calender which I cut out before adding some sparkle and the simple greeting is from the Personal Impressions stamp set - Double Sayings.  A few adhesive gems, and flowers add a touch of additional bling. 

A really simple but effective card idea is to take a square of design paper, mat it onto a slightly larger piece of coordinating card, (leaving a small border), and place it in the centre of a square card blank.  Then I added a stamped greeting from a set by Country Companions, (another magazine freebie found under the bed!), adhesive gems and a couple of pretty butterfly embellishments - job done!  Fingers crossed that this one qualifies for entry into DCC410 over at The House That Stamps Built but they're looking for Clean and Simple so this may be a wee bit too fussy.  No matter though 'cause I still like it and it does work for the Flutter By Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes 'cause there are 2 butterflies.

Finally I took one of the offcuts, matted and layered it onto pink, then knotted some pretty satin ribbon around the panel before matting onto white linen and silver mirri card.  A 2nd panel was created from the last remaining scrap of pink card matted onto silver and white linen panels, then decorated with gorgeous wire flower embellishments. 
Following the A313 Sketch Challenge at The House That Stamps Built, both panels were then glued into place on an A5 white linen card blank before ovelapping them with a stamped greeting from the same freebie set as before.  Pink adhesive gems add a little bit of blingy balance.

Am off to explore blogland and see what everyone else has been up to this week.

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.

School's Out! ...

...For Summer!
Thursday was the final day of term and the children are now free to enjoy a break from their normal routines ... some warm sunshine over the next 6 weeks would be very welcome too!
I put together some simple treat gifts for my daughter's teachers, using Papermania Honey and Hugs papers and some coloured card.

Plain white card was cut into rectangles and the patterned papers were matted onto coloured card leaving a narrow border. 
The treat pouch was created by scoring and folding 6" wide card at 2" and 4"  and using a scalloped circle punch for the cutaway in the centre section, before securing at the back with strong double-sided tape.  This was then stapled at the top and bottom onto the prepared paper panel and then stuck to the white rectangle base, hiding the staples from view.  

A computer generated message was mounted onto coloured card cut with nestabilities and adhered with silicon glue to hide the securing staple at the front.

On the reverse I had attached a panel with room for a personal message and by adding ribbon to make a hanging, the teachers now have a cute keepsake for their notice boards when the chocolate is gone.
Coincidently 4 Crafty Chicks are doing a "School's Out Challenge" this week and the current Joanna Sheen Challenge is "Summer Days" so I'm submitting my wee treat hangings for consideration.

My precious mum celebrates her birthday today so we'll be popping round with her card and gift this afternoon.  I'll share her card ... and the one made for my dear friend Ann who also has her birthday today ... later, so's not to spoil the surprise.
Have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are and whatever you are doing ... and thank you for visiting.

Bunnies and Blog Hop

You can't have Easter without having bunnies and these little cuties from LOTV obviously love cupcakes ... well ... thinking about it ... who doesn't? 

They were coloured with Promarkers and cut out with Nestabilities Labels Four before being added as a topper to a 5" x 5" easel card, already decorated with gorgeous Easter papers from Paper Cellar.  A strip of multicoloured ribbon, a couple of pink pearls and some paper flowers with Stickle centres add some dimension and sparkle.

The 'stop' is provided by using a slim strip of paper, matted onto silver mirri and adhered to the base with foam pads to raise it.  The greeting is a simple silver peel off on a punched circle of paper which is attached to a silver daisy flower with silicon glue.

The card does fold flat enough to fit into an envelope although it would require a 'large' stamp for posting because of the 3D elements.

There are a gazillion Easter themed challenges on the go right now but I have chosen just a couple to play along with ...
C4E - #66 Bunnies and Chicks PLUS Blog Hop

Card Makin Mamas - #42 Easter
Crafty Sentiments - Bunnies
Incy Wincy Designs - #140 Easter 
Now I'm hippitty- hopping back over to join in the Crafts 4 Eternity blog hop. Have a super Saturday ... wherever you are and whatever you are doing. 

Bah Humbug! Challenge 45

For our challenge at Bah! Humbug! this week, we're looking for you to share some gift wrapping ideas, and we'd like to see how creative you can be making your presents look extra specially pretty.
I decided to keep things cheap'n'cheerful by recycling a card sent to us last year to make a gift box.   It's a really simple idea that works with virtually any card size but more importantly in these cash-strapped times ... it's "cheap as chips!"

Firstly remove the front portion of the card with the image you want to use and then cut a matching piece of plain card for the base, which you need to trim so it's slightly smaller all round ... just trim a smigeon so it will fit snugly together when assembled.

Score a line on all four sides of both card pieces, making sure your score line is the same distance from each edge, and then trim the corners to make tabs.

Glue the four corner tabs in place, allow to dry and VOILA ... you have a cheap yet pretty little gift box which has cost nothing! 
This is a great way of using up all those beautiful images on cards that you've received but can't bear to throw away ... OH YES!  I know you have them too!
Recycling at it's best.
Our Guest Designer Colleen and Humbugger Ann have their own cool projects to show you so hop over to Humbug Hall for a quick peek before you get to work on your own ideas.

Condensing

I suppose I could, (or possibly even should), apologise yet again for my recent lack of blogging prowess ... for not visiting all the beautiful blogs on my favourites list ... for not being able to admire and drool over the eye candy on show ... for not leaving as many comments as I wanted to ... BUT to be honest, the simple fact is that I just haven't got the same time to devote to blogging as I used to and that's just how it is!   
So rather than apologising for circumstances beyond my control ... for being too busy and my general lack of spare time, (which would be a waste of both my limited time and yours), I shall just condense my recent Bah! Humbug! DT examples into one single post, hope that someone will pop by to read what I've hurriedly written and leave it at that.  Take a deep breath and run with me.
READY?  LET'S GO!
Challenge 38 asked for a familiar favourite of crafters worldwide, in the form of Rudolph/Reindeer.   I opted for a simple gatefold card decorated with a lovely paper from my stash, (which I think was a Dovecraft pack from a couple of years ago), and tied with a length of silver ribbon.

Challenge 39 involved incorporating Nativity into our projects and surprisingly, the DT came up with similar ideas, but the end results were all completely different.  Take a look HERE and you'll see what I mean.
I stamped a silhouette image and mounted it onto a larger panel of black card, tied a wide satin ribbon and diamante clasp on the right and then adhered the whole thing to a white DL card blank.

Challenge 40  which is our current challenge, has been extremely popular, with oodles of entries sprinkling Christmas sparkle everywhere after we asked for Glitz and Glitter ... although I suspect the super prize on offer spurred many into joining in.   Whatever the reason for the extra numbers this week, my DT example is beginning to look rather insipid by comparison to some of the fabulous creations I've seen so far. 

But despite this, I stand by my decision to use pink teamed with black and silver on the basis that it has a fairly modern look, coupled with plenty of sparkle which is almost considered essential for Christmas by most of us crafty critters.

Hmmmmm ... looking back there's not a lot of condensing happening is there lol? ... but it's time for me to cut'n'run as there's the small matter of work to get up for tomorrow morning and sleeping in is NOT an option!
Nighty-night ... sleep tight ... and enjoy the rest of your week, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

PS: Thanks for visiting ... and please don't worry or feel guilty if you haven't got time to leave a message ... I absolutely understand. xxx

Bah Humbug! Challenge 37

Don't know why I always seem to be chasing my tail these days, but here at last, is my DT offering for our Bah! Humbug! Challenge 37 - Flourishes and Swirls.

Although it's another simple design using panels of Kanban mirrored foiled card adhered to a black tri-fold card blank, with an embossed panel matted onto black overlapping the fold, the finished result looks kind've good ... in fact I would even go so far as to say they're verging on elegant.

Last year I remember using this same design idea for my Mother-in-Law's personalised Xmas cards, making a batch of gold designs and a batch of silver and they proved to be quite popular, so I may be making some for myself to send this year.

Gold Collection 2010

Silver Collection 2010

Our Guest Designer Barb has Flourishes and Swirls galore on her project this week, so I suggest you take a peek before heading off to make your own fantastic flourishy creation for our challenge HERE. 
Go on now - run along and see for yourself if you don't believe me and enjoy the remainder of your weekend ... wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

Bah! Humbug Challenge 36

Whoops ... forgot to take this post out of draft - silly me!
Our challenge at Humbug Hall this week is to use Paper Weaving in our projects, so armed with 2 complimentary sheets of paper from Dovecraft Fancy Pants pack, I cut narrow strips and wove them together.  
Taking a DL card blank and one of the Shapeabilities Nested Pine Trees, I ran them through the Cuttlebug to create an aperture and then placed some of my paper weaving behind it. 

The parcel above the peel off greeting was another section of the woven paper, placed onto the card front with double sided tape with a pretty matching ribbon bow glued on top.  

That left a touch too much white space for my liking, so using up the last remnants of woven paper, I cut the ends at an angle and filled the gap.    JOB DONE and another card for the Christmas box.
Hop over to Humbug Hall to take a gander at the lovely card our Guest Designer Barb created for this challenge where she mastered a new technique beautifully.

Enjoy your weekend ... wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

Whoops'a'Daisy

Have had a busy weekend and didn't realise that Mr. Blogger hadn't shown my latest Bah! Humbug! card ... maybe he thought it just wasn't worth the effort, but I'm going to defy him and show you anyway lol!
The theme this week is 'Beads' and to be honest they're not something I use often, if at all, so this was a tricky week for me ... I wasn't even sure I had any of the pesky little blighters in my stash.  However, as I've discovered many times in the past, if you look long enough and hard enough then eventually you will find and I was lucky to come across these silver stars complete with beads in a little craft box tucked away at the back of a shelf.   I think they were actually salvaged from a Christmas Cracker many moons ago ... a perfect example of why you should NEVER throw anything away!

Then it was a simple case of glueing them in a curve onto a white linen card, adding a peel off greeting and a stamped silhouette reindeer decorated with sparkly gems and trimmed with deckle-edged scissors.   

Another easy peasy card which came together really quickly once I eventually had all the bits'n'pieces together ... handy when you're in 'chasing your tail' mode!
Fellow Humbugger Ann and our Guest Designers Abi and Kathy K have been much more inventive than I have, so take a look and then tootle off to do your own thing with beads.  Have fun!

Bah! Humbug! Challenge 28

Life is still running at breakneck speed but maybe if I was a lot more organised and paced myself better, things would be easier.  Which meant that once again I found myself with too little time to create anything "Fancy-Schmancy" for Bah! Humbug! Shapes Challenge and had to settle for "Easy-Peasy".
Taking a red square card blank I cut a triangle shape from each of the four sides thereby making an "X" shape. 

Using this as a template, I traced around it onto some patterned paper from the fabulous g.c.d. studios paper stack Joyful Peace and then trimmed slightly inside the lines with deckle-edged scissors ... added a red velvet bow and a greeting and 'Bob's yer Uncle!' ... or maybe yer Aunty - you never can tell these days lol!

If more inspiration is needed before you have a go then check out the DT gallery over at Humbug Hall  where Ann, Abi and Kathy K. are sharing some great ideas for shaped cards.   If you have a good idea of your own then feel free to join in, we'd love to see it.
Righty-O ... gotta' dash to the hairdresser so will see you all later xxx  

Bah Humbug! Challenge 27

Sometimes I just wish the world would slow down a wee bit ... or at least wait for me to catch up lol!  It's been another busy week with lots happening and I thought that as the schools are on holiday there would be a little more R+R time ... but I was mistaken.  It seems Time and Bah! Humbug! wait for no one so there was  nothing else for it but to knuckle down and get busy with our latest challenge and this week we're creating with 'critters' ... specifically Mice.

I started with a 6" x 6" card blank and decorated it with a small panel of the most gorgeous double-sided paper from g.c.d studios paper stack Joyful Peace  ... which was very difficult to cut into let me tell you!  It's just too fabulous for words but fortunately there are 4 sheets of 12 different designs so I still have plenty left to stroke lol!  Some red funky fibres add some decoration and make a nice change from ribbon.

I stamped the cute mouse holding a heart twice and coloured with Promarkers, before adding a foil snowflake and some gold stickles to the hearts.  The sentiment was then stamped and matted onto gold mirri card before attaching with foam pads between these two happy chappies.  
All the products used here were purchases made from Kitty Krafts where Louise and Ross welcomed me with open arms, as always.  They then plied me with coffee and the most amazing Coffee Tower cream cake before letting me loose on their stock - which is extensive in anyone's crafty eyes.  Whilst I don't manage to visit them as often as I'd like ... I ALWAYS make sure it's worth making the 60'ish mile round trip ... and this week's visit was no exception so their stock is now minus several gorgeous items - because I have them lol!
Humbugger Ann and our Guest Designers Abi and Kathy K. have been busy wee critters over at Humbug Hall and have some super-dooper cute cards to show you so please do yourself a favour and go for a peek ... then if you have some wee meeces who'd like to come out and play with ours, why not join in with our challenge?
Am off to try to catch up with my tail ... which I've been chasing all week ... so see you all soon.

Bah Humbug! Challenge 26

Blimey Oh Riley!  Can it possibly be 1st July already?  Apparently so ... and that means that the school holidays will officially start at lunchtime today HOORAY!  It'll be nice to relax the routine for a few weeks ... we just need to hope for some sunshine so we can actually ENJOY lazy Summer days, rather than just dreaming of them lol!
Over at Bah! Humbug! though, there are no thoughts of sunshine as we're still concentrating on building up a decent stock of Christmas cards and for our challenge this week, we'd like to see how creative you can be with Acetate.  Now I admit that I'm not particularly confident when using this product so to keep out of trouble I opted to do an easy peasy lemon squeezy card using the simplest of ideas ... do you likee?  

Using an A5 piece of patterned card folded in half as a base card, I positioned a fancy-pantsy adhesive sticker on the front ... isn't it gorgeous? ... and then simply folded an identical sized piece of acetate to create a jacket cover over the top.   

This is held in place with narrow gold ribbon tied in a bow and a small peel off greeting was added to the bottom corner.   
TA DA!  Job done in 5 minutes!    
My fellow Humbugger Ann and our brand new July Guest Designers, Abi and Kathy K, have put a lot more effort into their projects and I recommend that you take a look ... and then if you want to play along this week, there's a super wee prize up for grabs for one lucky random entry as it's the 1st challenge of the month.   Feel free to be as creative as you like ... or you can play safe like me ... tee hee.
Enjoy your Summer ... wherever you are and whatever you are doing.  Ciao for now! xxx

Bah! Humbug! Challenge 25

Apologies for my recent absence but unfortunately I suffered a rather nasty bout of "Barf Humbug" ... more commonly known as Gastroenteritis ... and blogging was the last thing I thought about.  Am feeling much better now though and was able to join Ann, Wendy and Christine for this week's Bah! Humbug! Penguin Challenge.

This cute trio was stamped with black ink and embossed before colouring with Promarkers and matting onto burgundy card.    I then hand embossed some random snowflakes and used the cuttlebug to emboss the sentiment before colouring it with vivid green Promarker.
Green stripey paper and a panel of green mirri card decorated with knotted ribbon provide a colourful backdrop with some Diamond Stickles adding some sparkle to the image.

You really must check out Bah! Humbug! to see for yourself the super offerings by my fellow Humbugger Ann and our Guest Designers, Wendy and Christine who will sadly be leaving us this week.