Whoops! Bit late!

The new challenge went live at Sweet Pea Stampers yesterday and somehow, in the chaos of getting back into our routine after a week's holiday, I forgot all about it! :lol:

 

Still, better late than never, here's my card for the Birds of a Feather challenge:

 

 

I used Ching-Chou Kuik's Scarlett Holly image and coloured it with my Prismacolor pencils (am really enjoying using these pencils - it's a different technique that colouring with Promarkers but the effects are at once lovely and soft and yet vibrant in colour):

 

 

I covered a plain white card blank with a mixture of patterned paper and embossed white card (of which I'd inked the edges) and used some pretty ribbon to cover the join and I stamped and punched out a sentiment using coordinating Stampin' Up! stamp and punch.

 

 

I finished things off with some flowers and, in a last-minute burst of inspiration (cos the packet was lying around on my desk - see, being untidy can sometimes actually be useful! :D), a little chipboard bird which I covered with Versamark ink and heat embossed with sparkly gold embossing powder.

 

 

The challenge runs for a month and you don't have to use a Sweet Pea Stamps image to enter, though of course we'd love it if you did (and doing so will get you an extra chance to win).

 

Inspiration

Am I the only one who spends hours pinning pretty projects on Pinterest... but then never actually gets around to doing anything with those pinned ideas? :)

 

Well, no more! :)

 

I recently pinned this simple but striking card by Marion Vagg and have been dying to have a go at the technique (basically, stamping and embossing an image with white embossing powder on coloured card and outlining/shading the stamped image with a toning coloured pen).

 

I wanted to make a thank you card for some friends who invited us to visit their home on our long drive home from our holiday last weekend so decided this was the perfect opportunity:

 

 

I love this technique. The white embossing against an intense cardstock colour is so striking and the addition of the shading makes the image pop even more.

 

 

I might even get around to trying out some more of the projects I've pinned. :)

 

Butterfly Profile

I want to share a card with you today... but it's not one made by me!

 

In fact, this card has been made by the incredibly talented Manderly, using one of my new digi stamps, called Butterfly Profile.

 

 

Isn't it just gorgeous? I love the intense colours on this card and how beautifully she has coloured the image. I only started selling my digi stamps just a month or so ago so it's still a huge thrill for me to see other people creating with my images... and especially making something this incredible! :)

 

 

Manderly created this card for her stint as guest designer at Quirky Crafts Challenges and she has kindly agreed for me to share her creation here on my blog. I love everything about this card... the shape of the card, the delicate die-cuts and flowers, and the way they overhang the edges of the card, the ribbon bow and metal tag, the fabulous soft colouring and shading on the image... and also how she's glittered and glossed the butterflies on the image, and even printed some out in a larger size and cut them out as extra embellishments. Just beautiful!

 

You can buy this image, and my other digi stamps, from the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet and you can see some other creations using my stamps on the Alipeeps' Art tab at the top of my blog. :)

WOYWW 205

Am back in the land of WOYWW after my week's absence... but sadly don't really have anything to show on my desk this week:

 

 

I haven't had chance to do any crafting since we got back from our little holiday so the desk is still in the state of chaos in which I left it before we headed off down to sunny (and boy, it sure was!) Dorset.

 

I do however have some crafty photos to share because I actually managed to do some crafting while we were on hols. :)

 

My lovely sister-in-law has been my crafty accomplice and enabler for ooooh, nearly 9 years now! She's responsible for getting me into scrapbooking, for getting me hooked on Stampin' Up!, and for generally encouraging, aiding and abetting my crafty addictions and stash shopping! ;) But in all this time, we had never yet actually gotten to craft together.

 

Well, last week, we finally did. I left hubby with the kids for a few hours and spent a fabulous afternoon at my SIL's house playing with our Gelli plates and making lots and lots and lots of gorgeous, messy, painty backgrounds. Just look at the results!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not only that, but after dashing back to the rented holiday house to cook dinner for the gang, I abandoned hubby and kids for another couple of hours and went with SIL to her weekly cardcrafting group. It was lovely to meet her crafty friends and spend some time crafting with a group of lovely, creative ladies. And we made this gorgeous card....

 

 

...using a faux-patina technique which I'd not tried before.

 

 

All in all, I had a lovely crafty afternoon/evening, spent some great time with my SIL and came away with some gorgeous creations. What more could a girl ask for? :)

 

Thanks for stopping by. Normal crafting service will no doubt be resumed for next week's WOYWW.

 

Anything Goes

It's time for another Anything Goes challenge at One Stitch At A Time and this week I've been creating with some of Oase's gorgeous digi papers:

This set of papers is called Inspiration and they're just lush! :) I teamed them with one of Stitchy's fab digi stamps, called Babe, and coloured her to match the papers:

I cut the circles using Nestabilities dies and the scrolls using a Framelits die (which I then cut into sections) and stamped a sentiment using a Stampin' Up! stamp and layered it over punched/die-cut shapes. The image was cut out and attached with foam pads.

 

 

Entries using a Stitchy Bear product this week will be in with a chance to win all the digis used by the Design Team in Challenge #160 - that's a whole lot of awesome digis! :) Entries not using a Stitchy Bear product will have a chance to win a $3 gift voucher to the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet.

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Catch The Bug - Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar - Blooms and Blossoms
Our Creative Corner - Anything Goes
Anabelle Stamps - Anything Goes
Bloggers Challenge - A Feminine Touch
Creative Corner - Flowers and/or Mother's Day
Jellypark Challenges - Girly Girl
Left Of Centre Creative Challenges - Use a Digi
Stampin' For The Weekend - Die-cuts/Punches

 

Tranquility

For my Sweet Pea Stamps card this week I'm using one of Concetta Kilmer's newest digi stamps - this lovely image called Tranquility:

 

 

I do love to colour images of faces and I love how Concetta has drawn this image with her big eyes and flowing hair. I chose to colour this image in fresh colours of yellow and blue...

 

 

...then coincidentally I popped into my local craft shop recently and picked up this gorgeous new die (which I just *had* to play with straight away! :D) and these lovely flowers which were pretty much a perfect colour match for the colour scheme I'd used on the image! Perfect timing or what? :)

 

 

So I decided to carry through the colour scheme for the rest of the card and used turquoisey-blue and warm yellow cardstock and papers. I kept the design fairly simple, attaching the cut-out image with foam tape and adding ribbon, my die-cut frame and the flowers and a few gems to finish.

 

 

You can buy this image in either red rubber or digi format at the Sweet Pea Stamps store.

 

And don't forget the scrapbooking challenge at the Sweet Pea Stamps blog - you've got until tomorrow to enter! :)

 

Scrap Map

It's time for the new Scrap Map challenge at Creative Craft World and this month I've done a digi page again... mainly because I'm on my hols and a couple of hundred miles away from my craft room! :lol:

 

 

For my page I've actually used some photos of myself! *gasp*

 

As the journalling explains, I'm almost never in photos because I'm always the one behind the camera taking the photos. Plus I usually look awful in photos! :lol:

 

However, when we spent a (gorgeous, sunny) morning at the beach this week, my hubby actually picked up the camera - for once! - and snapped some pictures of me paddling in the sea. And I thought they were perfect for this month's sketch. :)

 

I used a Creative Victorian digikit called Visual.

 

The Scrap Map challenge is lots of fun and so easy to enter - just make your own project using the sketch provided and link it up at the CCW blog for a chance to win yourself a prize.