Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #67 - For the Boys

Our Hostess for the challenge this week is Sally. She would like a male themed project. It  could be for a big boy, a little boy or a baby boy, so long as it's male themed.

We are sponsored this week by One Stop Card Crafts who are offering a prize of a £10 voucher for their shop.

And also by Digi Doodle Shop who are offering a prize of a $10 gift certificate for their store!!

I have used the Light House image from our sponsor - Digi Doodle Shop. I chose this because it is completely different to anything else I generally use for male themed cards and I was looking for a challenge. As always, I printed the image onto watercolour card, and heat set it with my heat gun. I then used my trusty watercolour tin to paint the image. To create the sky and water, I put a wash of just water over the area, then added colour into it.

I then had to decide on the background. I wanted a red, white and blue colour scheme to fit with a nautical theme, and chose to use the red gingham and navy blue crown papers from the 12x12 Papermania Portobello Road pack. I have to admit that my first attempt was a disaster - overly fussy and really detracting from the image. So I started again, and this time kept it simple.

The image and the mats are cut using Spellbinders nesties, and the corners of the large blue mat were rounded with an X-Cut corner rounder. The centre panel on top of the gingham paper is made from layering white grosgrain, blue satin and wine organza ribbons from my stash. I finished it off with tiny circle of white with blue gems. 

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

That Craft Place Challenge Blog - One for the Boys

Daisy Doodles Creative Challenge - One for the Boys

Be back soon!!
Cxx

Feeling Funky!!!

You may be wondering what's making me feel funky!! It certainly isn't the after effect of teaching Year 6 today, believe me!! It is, however, the fact that Funky Hand have a Design Team call going on at the moment - and I thought I'd apply!! Part of the application is to post a couple of projects that I am particularly proud of, in order that my style of crafting can be seen. Now, as you can see, I've technically included more than a 'couple' but it was difficult to choose just two.

It was the Funky Wordbooks CD that first got me interested in Anice's work so I have to include one. This is using the Blue Magic selection from the Dreams Come True CD: 

My next choice is a 8" boxed wedding card that a friend commissioned me to make. This was my first foray into using embossing paste - and I love the Dreamweaver stencil. I love this because of the white on white textured layers which makes the red heart pop out!!

I am a great fan of Sheena Douglass' Paint Fusion, and have made lots of fusion-ed items to give to friends for their birthdays. One of these friends asked me to make some coasters for her to give to her Mum. The problem was she wanted a full bloom rose. Now, this was before Sheena brought out her Rose Bloom, so I had to come up with something myself. Working from a photo, I came up with this. I'm really proud of being able to take all the techniques I had learnt from Sheena, and translate them into producing this.

I've put this one in , as I was proud of myself for trying something new with it!! I used my sewing machine to stitch down the sides! I also created it with just white card and one ink pad!! Quite a feat for me!!

And finally, I have to be proud of this card, as it is the card I won my first (and -it has to be said -my only) Challenge with. And yes - it was the Funky Hand 'Blue' challenge earlier in the year

So, there you have it!! I will just have to keep my fingers crossed and will let you know what happens.


Cxxx 

Golden Times!!

So, I've broken my resolution to blog once a week, but I think I have a valid excuse!! From Wednesday to Friday I was on a residential trip with a class of Y5 children!! Was great fun - but very tiring!! 

Well, I'm back now with a card that I have struggled to photograph to best effect - in particular to show the flowers. But here it is!!

This is a Golden Weddng Anniversary card for my husband's Aunt and Uncle!! It took me a while to decide how I wanted to do this - but eventually plumped for gold flowers.

To make the base card and matching box, I used a large sheet of Centura Ivory pearl card. The cream and gold pearl papers, and the burgundy textured paper were all from Crafters Companion Enveloper paper packs purchased eons ago!! I used an insert from the Spellbinders Postage Stamp Edgeabilities set and cut the decorative edge in the cream paper, backing it with the burgundy. The rest of the mats were cut using various Grand Nesties, with the Lace Doily providing the background for the flowers. 

The flowers are cut from the gold pearl paper using the two largest Bitty Blossoms dies, while the embossed leaves are one of the Foliage dies. A little gold ribbon finished it off!! As ever, the lettering is X-Cut Roma die, and the numbers are from an old X-Cut set.

The lid of the box echoes the card design but without the lettering, while the insert has a scaled down version of the mats without the flowers!! Just hope they like it!!

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Hiding in My Craft Room - April Showers bring Homemade Flowers

So Artful Challenges - Wedding/Anniversary

Fairy Fun Fridays - Anything with Flowers

Be back soon!!

Cxx

Lucky Dip!!

You'll be glad to hear I am pretty much back to normal after my little throat infection. I haven't had much time to craft as we had to catch up on all the planned Easter Holiday jobs around the house that went by the by when I was ill. So I'm just about sorted, tidied, rearranged, cleaned and painted out!! Need to get into the greenhouse at some point too - luckily it's all pretty much looking after itself at the moment - just a bit of potting on to do!! 

I'm hoping this week to get back to Zumba, and restart my preparation for Race for Life - my toe is just about OK now - still a bit sore - but hopefully will hold up to some exercise.

Well, so as I don't break my 'one blog a week' resolution here are a few cards made from what I pulled from my lucky dip 'kit' box. In the past I have been a real sucker for buying card kits. I'm getting better at resisting - but I still have loads of bits left - all sorted and ready to be made up in my 'lucky dip' box. 

These are all from the Hunkydory Butterfly Jewels Amethyst Collection. The A5 base cards are foiled and printed already, so not much extra was needed. All I've added is some silver mirror card. The first topper is simply matted and layered onto silver mirror card, and a piece of the co-ordinating backing paper. The corners were rounded with an X-Cut corner rounder punch. I added some silver flourishes cut with Spellbinders Flourish Accent Dies. As a finishing touch I glazed the larger jewels on the main image.

The second topper was mounted onto a piece of co-ordinating paper cut using a Spellbinder Romantic Rectangle, and then onto silver mirror card. This time I glazed the large jewels in the image, and also around the border. 

For the third and final card, I cut the paper with Spellbinders Lace Doily Motif die, and mounted both onto silver card, and another piece of co-ordinating paper - the corners rounded with the X-Cut punch. And of course, I glazed the jewels in the image and border. 

Think that's just about it. Until the next time....

Cxxx

Pretty In Pink!!

Well, I was most certainly not feeling pretty in pink this past weekend. Friday was the last day of term, and by the end of it, my head felt like it was going to implode - the little lovelies were sensitive enough to be shushing each other when I stood at the front of the room with my eyes closed and one hand on my head!! I put it down to tiredness and stress and general end-of-term-itis!!! After tea I sat down to attempt my design team contribution to Crafty Cardmakers Easter Challenge. I persevered for about an hour by which time I was having trouble seeing straight, so decided to go to bed early and try again Saturday. Well, the headache progressed to a sore throat, and during the night I was periodically waking up with a totally dry mouth, and it felt like I was chewing on razor blades every time I swallowed. 

At this point I would like to issue a health warning about watching Spellbinders shows on dear old Create and Craft as you fall asleep. For those of you that know, it was the Pick of the Week, and they were being offered in huge bundles. Well, in amongst my fluctuating temperature and horrible throat, I spent my 'sleeping' hours panicking about sorting the piles of Spellbinders out. If I could just get them into an order, then find the 'simple' ones (whatever they may be) and choose just one, I would be fine. Believe me, it took me all night!!! 

Well, Saturday was my littlest niece's birthday party - luckily it's not her birthday until Sunday, or I'd never have made this card for her. Not wanting to let her down, my husband and I headed out for her pony party. I managed an hour before wanting to curl up and die. The rest of the weekend passed me by, and I finally got to the doctor's on Monday. A beautifully swollen and infected throat!! Tell me something I didn't know. With the aid of penicillin, I am now on the mend and have been able to sit and make her card!!

She's very much into pink, so I decide to go with that as the colour theme - and stick with white as the background. The other thing I wanted to try was something I saw someone do on the TV just recently (I'm sorry - I can't remember who it was). That was to use fusible film and fibre to create a material to die cut from. 

So I used Crafty Notions Sugarplum Fusible Film, and sandwiched some Sugarplum Angelina Fibres and Opal Haze Crystalina Fibres in between. I then die cut the butterfly with Spellbinders Wings of Hope die. I also cut a butterfly from the fuschia glitter card to act as a shadow. The '8' was from the same glitter card using a large stencil set bought from The Range. I cut the name using X-Cut Smoothie Die. I don't often use this set as I struggle to get it through my die cutter, and also some of the lower case letters are not the same size!! 

Anyway, I embossed a piece of white card with the dotty mask from That Special Touch and rounded the top two corners. I then used the butterfly border from the Edgeabilities Decorative Inserts set 6, backed with the glitter card. The scrap from this was stuck onto the '8' and covered with glitter glue! There is a white scalloped mega oval running from top left to bottom right, but it doesn't really show on the photos. The gem swirl was made using a gem template I bought at Hobbycraft. 

Hopefully the overall effect is pink and blingy!!! A bit like my lovely little niece!!

I'd like to enter this into the following challenges:

Bling It On - Monochrome

Cupcake Craftroom - Bugs n Birds n Wings n Things

Celebrate the Occasion - Child's Birthday

Will hopefully be back soon!!

Cxx