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.

Bah! Humbug! Challenge 43

It's the final month of challenges for 2010 over at Bah! Humbug! and we have a brand new Guest Designer Pat of Pip's Pastimes joining us.  So if you haven't already made a start on your Christmas cards this year ... and if not then WHY not? ... then you might benefit from checking out our projects this week to get you in the mood.
My Fancy Fold offering is quite simply an ordinary gatefold card with a couple of extra folds thrown in on the front panels for added interest.    

The fabulous green and gold Christmas tree paper is from Dovecraft Vintage Christmas Collection and is matted onto gold mirri card to really bring out the warm tones.   

After cutting the main piece for the back panel, I cut one of the trees from the remains to pop onto the front for some added dimension.  I can't decide whether to add some adhesive gems or not - what do you think?

The large snowflakes are a Marianne die cut from gold mirri card and the tiny ones are made with a small snowflake punch.   The stamped greeting has been heat embossed with gold on black card and is one of the messages from a Buzzcraft Christmas set - a recent sale bargain.
My fellow Bah! Humbuggers are waiting to show you their projects too and if you need any further persuasion to get out your Christmas stash and join in then we have a wee prize up for grabs this week for one lucky random entry.

Oriental Happy Birthday

As one of six children, there are very few months in the year that are free from birthdays and today it's the turn of my baby sister Debbie. 
The oriental card I made uses a selection of Waltzing Mouse Stamps from Claire Brennan's recently released Asian Garden collection,  which were stamped onto red card and embossed with a combination of black and gold embossing powders.    A smidgeon heavy with the gold I feel, but just check out that shine!

The panels were then matted onto black card, followed by gold mirri card, leaving narrow borders before layering onto a white DL card blank.

The sentiment was stamped onto red card,  embossed in black and then lightly rubbed over with a Brilliance Dew Drop gold ink pad before die cutting with Nestabilities - Labels One.  

I matted it onto black card, embossed the edge with gold powder and then placed it over the background strip with foam pads.   The 'Birthday Wishes' part of the sentiment is from WMS Asian Garden, but 'Sister' is one of Papermania's Relations clear stamps, which I know will become a favourite to have close at hand.
Simon Says Stamp are celebrating their 1st Blogaversary and are having an awesome party which includes a Blog Hop and you'd better believe there are loads of fabulous prizes on offer, so I'm going to gatecrash and enter this card into their Birthday/Celebrations Challenge.   Hope there's some red wine on offer as blog-hopping is thirsty work!
A few other challenges are ...
Papertake Weekly Challenge - Shiny and/or Sparkly
Stamp Something - Birthday
Rainbow Lady - Make Your Own Background Paper

Q: Whooo's a Twit-Twoo?

A: Me!
Q: Why?
A: 'Cos I forgot someone's birthday and didn't send a card - DUH! 
That little snippet of information probably won't come as any great surprise to a lot of people who know me as they can see me getting more scatterbrained as the years go by.   Hey Ho ... old age doesn't come by itself LOL!

Anyway ... my little moment of amnesia meant I needed to make a belated birthday card and as there was a box from QVC sitting on the desk with DB's Spring Woodland kit inside, I thought I'd have a wee play. 

You will have guessed from the title of my post that I opted for the owl image from all the cute woodland characters, but that came about because it fitted the idea I had for the greeting. 
The cream base card was 8" x 8" and I sliced a section from the front before layering the back panel with some pretty double sided patterned card, (from the kit), matted onto silver mirri card.  The remaining front panel was then decorated wih the reversed patterned card, also matted onto silver mirri.

The die cut wavy border was then attached with foam pads - this was already foiled so no cutting out was needed. 
From the remaining strips of patterned card I punched the circles for the alphabet stickers, (not included) and then cut 2 x Nestability scalloped ovals with my cuttlebug - one of which I trimmed and overlapped to make it big enough for the owl image, (can you see the join?) - and then I used the offcut for the alphabet stickers on the front before doodling with a white gel pen.

Inside I opted to use the cute die cut bunny message which was layered onto the last wee scrap of pink dotty card - and that's it!
I now need to get this card in the post or it'll be a week late - and that just won't do!
I'm going to submit this card as an entry at  
Crafty Cardmakers whose theme is Spring
and also 
Daring Cardmakers, for their theme of Tweetie Pie, if multiple entries are allowed.

Patchwork Pals

This card was sent to my niece for her birthday last week but apparently it didn't arrive until the weekend. Good ol' Royal Mail doing what they do best ... annoying the British Public and causing chaos ... CHEERS!
It might be a good idea to start sending Christmas cards now just in case methinks.

The cute bunny is from the Patchwork Pals kit bought from QVC and I have to say it is great for making quick cards as all the pieces are die cut so just need popped out from the sheet.
If only the back and fronts matched properly it would be perfect ... "mini moan" ... but a couple of snips with scissors removed most of the overlap so not a huge hassle.
I really like the cute greeting stamp which is from Hampton Arts.
If you click the picture it's easier to read.

I've been really busy with Christmas card orders but hope to get some time to play with the new stamp set which arrived from Waltzing Mouse this morning ... I know I'm just soooooooo naughty but can't help myself!

For the Boys

June is a pretty busy month for birthdays in our family and on Sunday 14th it's the turn of my nephew and my son to celebrate their special day.
I'm still working on our card for Niall ... GULP! ... it's not easy trying to work when he's hovering around and sticky-beaking into my space ... but I finished this one for Naomi to give to him. The image was in a folder on my PC and I added the text in PSP (Paint Shop Pro) before printing it onto plain white paper and double matting onto coloured card. The stripy paper is from a Paper Cellar pad.
Hopefully he will disappear to bed soon so's I can wrap his prezzies and finish his card from hubby and I ... if not then it'll probably mean a night shift for me.

This die cut decoupage car was completed on Friday and posted to my nephew so hopefully it arrived today ... nothing startling but fingers crossed he likes it.
Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful weekend ... wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

Dino-Decoupage

Regular visitors here will know that decoupage is not ... and probably never will be ... my "thing" but I really admire and appreciate other people's beautiful results.
I have a couple of Decoupage Sheets that were sent to me when I took part in a 'Tried and Tested' item for Crafts Beautiful magazine a while ago. So I thought I would just use them up and make a couple of cards for the Grab'n'Go box.
This one is Die Cut Decoupage so is easy peasy to make up ... just press out the pieces, add foam pads and layer it up.
Even I can't go wrong with that!

The characters are kind've cute and if you look carefully you can just about see the sparkle highlights which catch the light.
Just need to add a Dinosaur related greeting to the inside and it's good to go.

I think I may just about be in time to enter this into Creative Card Crew's Challenge #13 as the theme this week is 'Child's Play.'

Pink Elephant Challenge 4

The challenge this week at The Pink Elephant is Ribbons and Die Cuts ... and there is a lovely prize up for grabs of the fabby Ribbon Holder (including ribbons!) created by DT member Ann, who incidently wrote the easy to follow tutorial for anyone who fancies having a go themselves.

My effort this week uses Little Kitty Aloha which was part of the amazing Wish Wednesday CHA prize I won recently over at Becks Faggs blog. I still haven't made it to the bottom of the box yet ... thank you so much Becks!!

Little Kitty is a Sizzix die but the wee Cuttlebug (which was my birthday prezzie from hubby and kiddlings), coped no problem.
I used brown textured card to cut out Kitty, maybe not one of my better ideas as it disappeared into the Papermania background paper, (hence the need for a yellow border ... DOH!), and Papermania Spring Life paper was also used for her cute little outfit.
Matching ribbons were used to decorate the flower in her ear and also the sentiment tag which is blank for the moment.
Adhesive gems were added for eyes and to highlight some of the flowers.
In case you're wondering, this naughty little Kitty got her nose all sooty from falling in the black inkpad ... whoops! ... lesson learned to ALWAYS replace the lid immediately after use LOL!

FYI : Animals is the theme over at Charisma Cardz Challenge this week and also Cute Card Thursday but will need to check whether they allow entries to multiple challenges. They have some ultra cute stamps on offer though so might just risk it!