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.

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 25 - Less Is More

The 'Less Is More' theme at Bah! Humbug! was a piece of perfect timing as I had left it to the last minute and could only manage a simple card this week.

Out came the Cuttlebug and a few seconds later I had embossed this wonderful silver holographic mirri card with a line of trees, ready to trim and mat onto blue card.  A long strip of the same holographic card was embossed with swiss dots, wrapped with blue ribbon and placed onto a DL card blank before adding a siver peel off greeting and the embossed trees.  
That's it!  Nothing else to it.  Job Done!

Don't you just love how this card changes colour with the light?  Reminds me of the Northern Lights.
Debs from Pink Dandelion's Craft Space is joining us as Guest Designer for July so you must drop by and see her debut card, as well as Ann and Irene's DT samples.  Also, as it is the first challenge of the month, there is our usual Prize Draw this week, so be sure to get your entries in and give yourself a chance of being selected as our random winner.  Looking forward to seeing you there.
I'm slipping this card in at the last minute for Die Cut Dreams Challenge 24 - Arctic Winter before the deadline of noon and also submitting it to ABC Christmas Challenges - 'N' is for Noel as they are looking for any card with a Christmas theme.

Welcome To The World

One of my very best friends of all time called me last weekend to announce the long awaited arrival of her first grandchild, so I had to make a card to send to the proud and happy parents.

The little bear is a cute Patchwork Pals die cut character from a QVC Kanban kit, as are the sentiments.  The button background card is a panel from one of the 3 fold aperture cards included in the kit with the circle removed and mounted onto a textured cream card blank, which was embossed with dots. 
I then divided the aperture circle into quarters and used a couple of pieces to decorate inside the card.  Simple but effective and very quick to make.

Keep It Simple is the challenge theme at Cupcake Craft Challenges this week so this is perfect timing and The Pink Elephant Challenge is to use Ribbon.  I know it is only a tiny piece knotted around the side ... but it's ribbon isn't it?  Charisma Cardz are having a Male theme and a baby boy is definitely male so I can join in there too. 
Can I just say how much I appreciate it that so many challenge blogs are now relaxing their rules by allowing us to enter different challenges with one card AND many of them no longer demand that their products must be included.  Makes it so much easier to play along and join in the fun ... and that's what it's supposed to be all about.  

Twin Girls

My cousin and his wife are now the proud parents of beautiful twin girls and here's the card I made for them.

I used Funky Fairys free download paper, which was matted onto silver mirri card to give a narrow border.

Before printing the cute baby girl decoupage sheet, I nipped into PSP (Paint Shop Pro) and reversed the topper so I could have mirror images for my front panel.
I did actually do a wee bit of decoupage to add a little dimension, only one layer I know, but regular readers here know it isn't my favourite thing so ... my theory is that one is better than none ... isn't it.?
The names were added using silver peel off letters.

Inside I again matted the pretty paper onto silver mirri card and then added a clear adhesive sticker onto the last scrap before popping it in the bottom corner.

Challenge #34 over at Funky Fairys this week is 'Recycling' and the bonnie pink twill ribbon was removed from a t-shirt before heading off to the wardrobe in the sky, and the buttons are also recycled from a cardigan, so that keeps me in with the theme.

KT's Challenge

Over at my forum buddy Shells blog is a Sketch Challenge which has been set by her 11 year old daughter and as I'm all in favour of encouraging the 'littlies' to be creative, I wanted to join in and give my support.
It would make her day to get a good response, so if you have a spare half hour and fancy playing along then hop on over to Shells.
I used a cute Penny Black stamp ... I really love those hedgies ... and it was coloured in with watercolour pencils before using a scallop punch and adding some doodling.
The patterned papers are from Papermania and they have been matted onto purple cardstock.
Purple and white velvet ribbon and a Prima flower topped with a button brad were added before mounting onto foam pads and sticking to the front panel.
The butterfly was created using silver decorative corner peeloffs and 2 small purple punched hearts with some graduating adhesive sparkle gems for the body.
Peeloff dots were ideal for the butterfly trail down to the greeting which is a transparent circle sticker on a leftover scrap of purple card.

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.

Cute Bumble~Bears

So ... what do you think of my new look?
Decided to go for a cute Bumble Bears theme this time.
Not as 'grown up' a look as I should probably have ... but it's a bit of fun and you have to admit they're kind've cute.
Not sure how long they'll last but they do brighten the place up so they can stay for now.

Luv'n'Stuff
Max
xx