Tag, You're It!

The new challenge at Dilly Beans Designers and Friday Challenge blog is to make a tag and I couldn't resist...

 

 

I used Ginger and Cinnamon digi stamps and used my Promarkers to colour them in summery shades of yellow and orange before cutting them out:

 

 

I cut a tag from kraft card and inked the inside of an embossing folder with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink before running the tag through the folder. 

 

 

I attached the cut-out images using foam pads and finished things off with some layered flowers, a few teeny tiny gemstones and some ribbons.

 

 

I love how this tag came out. The colours are all warm and bright and summery and the two girls look like they're standing in a summer garden. :)

 

I'm going to enter this tag into a couple of other challenges:

Crafts 4 Eternity Recipe Challenge - Anything Goes

Cut It Up - Summer

Graph'It Colour Challenge - Blonde Hair

Simply Create Too - Anything But a Card

Crafty Ribbons - Anything with a Ribbon

MilkCoffee Challenge - Emboss It

Creative Moments - Anything But a Card
Divas by Design - Anything Goes

 

 

Hello Summer

Well now, apart from today (of course!) the weather here has been mostly rather lovely for the past couple of weeks - the sun has been shining, the kids have been wearing summer dresses (and lots of suncream) and I've even caught a wee bit of a tan! :D

 

And, appropriately enough, the challenge theme this week at the Dilly Beans Designers & Friday Challenges blog is Summertime.

 

I decided to play with Megan's Doodle Flower image and had the idea to do a really Clean and Simple card with layered, coloured flowers and a large greeting. Here's how it turned out:

 

 

I printed the stamp in a variety of sizes and coloured them in with my Promarkers - using mostly last year's limited edition Summer colours. I loooove these bright, fresh, intense colours. Just really summery.

 

I then cut the flowers out and stamped my large greeting (a Stampin' Up! stamp) onto a white card blank using black ink...

 

 

... and then layered my flowers around and slightly overlapping the greeting, attaching a couple of them with foam tape for added dimension.

 

 

This flower digi stamp works awesomely for this idea of layering pretty flowers onto a card and I think the CAS style works really well. :)

 

Think Pink

It's an Anything Goes challenge at the Dilly Beans challenge blog this week but with a twist... you have to use a Dilly Beans image. Fine by me cos I looove Megan's fabulous digi stamps. :D

 

 

I went with a wee bit of a pink theme, as you may have noticed. ;)

 

I chose to use this adorable Flower Girl image and coloured her with my Promarkers in pretty shades of pink, with a bit of blue for contrast:

 

 

I kept the card fairly simple with a panel of pink card embossed with a dotty pattern. I cut out the image and framed it with a pretty die-cut frame:

 

 

I finished things off with layered lace and satin ribbon and a few gemstones:

 

 

Pretty in pink, I think? :)

 

Zombieeeees!!!

They're everywhere! Or maybe not. ;)

 

But they are on my card today. :D

 

 

This card is another example of serendipity at work. You see, I had a bit of a disaster last week - my Putty Promarker, which I use for all my skin-tone colouring, died a sudden death. I was bemoaning its loss on Facebook and a crafty friend of mine suggested, somewhat jokingly, that I would have to do green skin until the replacement I'd ordered arrived, and I joked back agreeing that I would just have to colour everything as zombies.

 

And then I saw the new challenge theme at the Dilly Beans challenge blog was "Green"! So, of course, I couldn't resist! :lol: And I am blaming this entirely on Mel. :D

 

I used this Rosie Framed digi stamp and coloured her with lovely, healthy, green zombie skin. :)

 

 

I kept the card fairly clean and simple with lots of white space, adding just a strip of patterned paper, a length of ribbon, and a few flowers and leaves:

 

 

And I finished things off with a stamped greeting (a Stampin' Up! stamp):

 

 

I'm also entering this card into the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps - Bring on Spring (lots of flowers)
Challenges 4 Everybody - Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations Paint - Go Green
Gingerloft - The Colour Green
Glitter n Sparkle - Use Green
Great Impressions - Going Green
Scrappy Frogs - Green/St Patrick's Day

Cards for Mums

I finished making a couple of cards last night, both of them, in different ways, cards for mums.

 

The first was my card to send to my mum for Mother's Day:

 

 

I had the idea for this card when my latest order of Stampin' Up! goodies arrived the other week. I love love *love* the new Bitty Butterfly punch that coordinates with some of the stamps from the Papillon Potpourri stamp set (one of my recent favourites - I love butterfly stamps! :D) and it's sooo easy to make pretty butterflies using these stamps and the coordinating punch. I've seen cards recently in blogland using e.g. punched flowers to make a shape, such as a heart shape, and decided to try and do the same using punched butterflies.

 

So I stamped a whole load of butterflies in 3 different colours and then punched them all out. Sooo quick and easy! Can you imagine how long it would have taken to cut out all these butterflies by hand?! :lol:

 

I printed a heart shape on my computer and cut it out and then set to glueing all the butterflies onto it until the shape was covered. I added a little sentiment that I made using the Simply Serif Mini Alphabet stamps, Pretty Petites stamp set and coordinating Petite Curly Label punch, all from Stampin' Up!

 

 

To make the card, I cut a panel of white card and embossed it with the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder from Stampin' Up! and attached it to my card blank then attached my butterfly heart shape in the middle of the card.

 

 

Et voila. I hope mum likes it. :)

 

The other card I made is for a new mum. DD1's keyworker at pre-school went off on maternity leave at half term.. and on Monday this week she gave birth to a bouncing 10lb(!!) baby girl. :) She's a lovely lady and DD1 really likes her so I thought it'd be nice to make her a card (and I got her a small gift too) and ask the school to pass it along to her:

 

 

I used an adorable digi stamp from Dilly Beans called Bunny Suit. I coloured it with Promarkers and a white gel pen and, for a bit of added dimension, I decided to *kind of* decoupage it. I very carefully cut around the little bunny girl, separating her from the stripey background. I then cut a pretty scalloped edge frame from white card using my Cameo and attached the background and the figure to it, gluing the background down straight onto the frame and attached the figure using foam tape.

 

 

I covered my card blank with some pretty pink dotty paper (another freebie with a craft magazine!) and added some pretty lace and some pleated pink ribbon (from Stampin' Up!). I attached the framed image using foam tape and finished things off with a couple of flowers and a word art sentiment that I made myself using my Cameo (more through necessity than choice as the Silhouette online store has been messing about and wouldn't properly download the word art sentiment I had bought!!).

 

 

I'm entering this card into the current Stripes challenge at the Dilly Beans challenge blog.

 

Clean and Simple Colour Combo

I seem to be on a bit of a Clean and Simple kick lately with my cards.

 

I wanted to make a card for the Red and Black challenge at Dilly Beans challenge blog this week and I decided to use this gorgeous Lulu Framed image:

 

 

I coloured her with Promarkers and a white gel pen and added some Glossy Accents to the hearts.

 

 

I decided to use a black card blank for my base card and I ummed and aahed for a while with patterned papers etc but in the end decided it looked better just keeping it simple with a die-cut flourish (just got this yummy Cheery Lynn die today), a couple of flowers...

 

 

...and a hand-written sentiment. I also added some little corner details with dabs of Enamel Accents:

 

 

 

I love this colour combo, it's so striking. :)

Say Cheeeeeeese!

The challenge theme this week at the Dilly Beans Designers and Friday Challenges blog has been Bookmarks. Not something I've really made before but I liked the idea and I had a look through my collection of Dilly Beans digi stamps and had a bit of an idea....

 

I decided that this fabulous Cheshire Cat digi would make a fantastic bookmark on all his own:

 

 

See what I mean? He's made for the job! He's long and thin and his tail is just the right shape to hook over the top of a page. :)

 

So I printed him out nice and big and coloured him in with Promarkers and a white gel pen. I glued him onto a sheet of thicker card, for added durability, cut him out and gave him a little hand-written sign (probably his most famous quote). To finish off I gave him a coating of clear embossing powder, for a nice protective sheen. Isn't he great? I love his sleepy-eyed, knowing grin.

 

And here he is in action, doing his thing:

 

 

And as I think he's so cool, and cos he's such an iconic Alice in Wonderland character, I'm also going to enter him into the We're All Mad Here, So Anything Goes challenge at The Altered Alice. :)

 

Be Happy

I have been doing an awful lot of colouring of digi stamps lately... largely due to the weather taking a turn for the chilly! I've been putting the gas fire on in the lounge in the evenings and it gets so nice and cosy in there that I find I hard to drag myself away into the craft room!

 

So I sit and colour digi stamps in the cosy lounge... but don't seem to actually get into the craft room to turn them into cards! :lol: But no more! Nope, I have forced myself to take my stash of coloured digis into the craft room and actually *make* something! And here it is:

 

 

I made this card for the Peach and Blue themed challenge at Passion for Promarkers, hence the colour scheme. I used a cute Dilly Beans digi stamp (as a mum of two girls, I love this cute little pair) and I plucked up my courage and made myself cut into my Graphic45 papers (why do these companies  keep making paper collections that are so pretty you just want to stroke them instead of using them?! :lol:). I also added some die-cuts from a K&Co pack that I've had lying around for ages (again, just too pretty to use!).

 

The digi is coloured with Promarkers with a few white gel pen highlights and I blended a little Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink around the edges of the image and then inked the edges of the image and the papers with Broken China Distress Ink.

 

I've gone old school with the photo cos it's really late and I really should be getting to bed so I couldn't be faffed getting the lightbox out. So it's a poorly-lit desktop shot I'm afraid. I'll try and replacce it with a properly-lit shot tomorrow. :)

 

Pop Goes Christmas!

Anyone else remember those "Pop Goes..." albums? Pop Goes Mozart? Pop Goes Beethoven? No? Just me showing my age then... ;)

 

(P.S. My dad had those albums... I'm not *that* old! :lol:)

 

Anyhoo, Pop Dots & Layers is the theme of the current challenge at Dilly Beans Designers & Friday Challenge blog and this is the card I made for the challenge:

 

 

I used this sweet Amalia's Christmas Lights image and had a bit of a play with some different techniques... I paper-pieced her dress (by the simple expedient of taping a piece of patterned paper to a piece of A4 copy paper and printing the digi image a second time onto that paper), coloured the rest of her with Promarkers, and for the christmas lights I printed the image a third time, onto plain white card, coloured the lights with Promarkers, added highlights with a white gel pen and then covered them in Glossy Accents before cutting them out and attaching to the main image using foam pads:

 

 

I decorated the card base with christmas themed papers and a die-cut snowflake frame.

Pretty in Pink.... and Blue!

Quick post cos it's waaaaay late and I really must go to bed!

 

Here's a sweet card I made for the Anything Goes challenge at the Dilly Beans Designers and Friday Challenges blog.
 

 

I used this gorgeous Dilly Beans image called Emily Framed and coloured her with my Promarkers in shades of pink and blue and added highlights with a white gel pen.

 

 

I covered my card with pale pink paper matted onto blue card, added a couple of lengths of ribbon and finished things off with a gorgeous intricate flourish - cut with my new Cameo! :D

 

 

Isn't she pretty? I love the contrast of the pastel blues and pinks.

 



Flower Girl

The current challenge theme at Dilly Beans Designers & Friday Challenges is "Anything Girl". Megan draws really gorgeous girls so I couldn't resist joining in with this card:

 

 

 

I went with a gatefold card (seem to be having a bit of a run of those lately) and pretty pastel, floral papers to match the pretty pastel (Promarker) colours I'd coloured the image with. I also put some of the patterned paper inside the card:

 

 

I finished the card off with a couple of die-cut flourishes and some pretty flowers... and a few gemstones on the centres of the flowers in the image:

 

 

 

I'm also entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - In the Garden

 

I've Been a Busy Bee....

Life can only be described as hectic lately! So much going on and there never seems to be enough hours in the day!

 

However, I did find time to craft tonight... mostly by way of staying up waaaaaay too late! :lol:

 

So, with that in mind, I shall share some quick photos of my creation and then head straight to bed (I couldn't be faffed to set up the lightbox at this late hour so you'll have to make do with photos taken with the daylight lamp on my craft desk)! :)

 

 

 

 

I've coloured the Dilly Beans image with my Promarkers and kept the card fairly simple (just loving the contrast between the black and the bright yellow), with paper from a freebie pad, a layered fabric blossoms and some gems.

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - Bee Happy (Yellow and Black)

Dilly Beans - Cute and Creepy