About Me

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I'm a retired primary school teacher, who started paper crafting in 2008, when I had a fancy to make my own Christmas cards. Since then, I have tried all sorts of techniques and styles - and I kind of like them all. I have been lucky enough to be on blog teams and large design teams and to do a bit of freelance demonstrating - and I love the challenge of working with different products. My crafting style is very varied - from junk journaling and art journaling, bookbinding and journal making, to quilting and patchwork - and of course I still make cards. This variety keeps me interested - and my crafty stash growing!! I'm always seeking inspiration for new projects.

Monday, 9 January 2012

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #59 - No Floral Embellishments

Our first challenge of the New Year is hosted by Fiona!! For this challenge you can use floral backing papers, an image with flowers as part of it or even a flower as the main image, but NO floral embellishments. That means no flowers or anything flower shaped (buttons, gems etc).

We are sponsored this week by One Stop Card Crafts who are offering a £10 voucher.



And by Digi Doodle Shop, who have a $10 gift certificate for their store 


For my card I have used one of the Digi Doodle Shop's digi stamps - the Lady Bug!! This image just jumped out and me - and although I continue to protest that I don't really do cute, the cheekiness of this image really appealed to me!!


I printed the image onto watercolour paper, and left it overnight before painting. For the most part, I used my old faithful Windsor and Newton watercolour tin, but I did decide to use Cosmic Shimmer Skin watercolour paint for the face and legs of the lady bug!! It doesn't really come across in the photo, but it adds a lovely shimmer!! I loved the fact that it turned out to be mostly red and green, so echoed that by simply matting and layering (all of course cut with nesties!!). The large green scalloped square is Bazzil, while the red is a slightly shiny hammered effect that I got from a little craft place locally.

To liven it all up, I used glaze on the lady bug, and rubbed glitter glue over the toadstools. And as flowers were out as embellishments, I went for some red rhinestones



The green ribbon is from a lovely little shop called Pinks Embroidery. I won a voucher in a raffle, and as I'm not into embroidery, I decided to splurge the lot on ribbon. The lady in there was lovely - and ended up giving me a gorgeous offcut as an extra because she said she was impressed with my enthusiasm for all things ribbon. My nieces came in handy to hold the reels as I made my choices - and the littlest one was in heaven as she loves the feel of silky things. The lady even encouraged her to feel the textures on the ones with patterns. There isn't an on-line shop, but the products are listed on the website and she will provide things by mail order.

For those of you that aren't of the ribbon persuasion, you may not understand my love of it - but if you do, you will appreciate the following sharing of my haul:

     


      
 
     

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Pop on over the the Crafty Cardmakers blog to see the wonderful inspiration from other members of the Design Team - then get crafting and share your creations with us!!

See you soon!!

Cxx

9 comments:

  1. Hi would love to be of the ribbon persuasion , i do love to buy it but i must go to some bow tying classes as I end up doing the same boring things with it. Sorry now its me rambling ! Love your card and this cheeky image . Your colouring is fabulous you are one talented lady.

    Marie

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  2. That is cute - but I can almost hear the giggles behind the hands! Fabulous card - love the big bow!

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  3. This is an adorable card. And I'm drooling over the ribbon. xx

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  4. cute, cute, cute cute
    The image is gorgeous. Beautiful card.
    Hugs
    Doreen xx

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  5. What a fun card, Carole! The colouring is just gorgeous and it's such a cute image :-)

    Beth. xxx

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  6. What a darling card! :) LOVE the blinged up corner--fabulous! :)

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  7. Lots of pretty ribbon there, I love the image you have chosen such a cheeky little ladybird.

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  8. I'm a ribbonaholic too Carole, although perversely it doesn't often make it's way onto my cards. I just like to look at it hanging in my craft room!

    Great card, fab colouring and I love how you have mirrored the spots on the mushrooms in your placement of the little gems.

    Happy New Year

    Lin

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  9. Such a lovely image, beautifully coloured too! I am a ribbon addict too, in fact I've got to take a photo and put it on my blog to show how bad my addiction is and to make sure I keep to my UIU pledge hugs Karen x

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Thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving a comment!! I really appreciate it!! Cxx