Shabby Vintage

I'm going to be honest. I have never made a vintage card before. This is for two reasons 1. I don't fully get what vintage is other than old looking and 2. I'm scared of it..... mainly all of the patterns I have seen used. Every time I buy a paper pack I get at least one page that I never use because it looks vintage. Well I think I have finally gotten to grips with my phobia and this is what happened.

Simon Says challenged us to make something vintage and to add flowers. At first I wasn't going to try, but I thought, "If you don't try you can't learn". I bought a papermania paper pack a while ago as part of a goody bag. I have to say that I don't know what to do with half of the papers, but they have inspired a lot of the orange cards that I have done lately. The paper I used on this card was one of the scarier ones in the pack. I edged the pieces I was using with fire brick and then I got a little too happy with the candle. I learned that adding distress ink and then setting light to the paper just makes it burn for longer (wont be doing that again).

Dotties world asked us to do some distressing which is where I got the idea for the pyromania.

I die cut some card and embossed it using a Fiskars texture plate. I coloured it with Aged mahogany and Fired Brick then sanded it in places until the white core showed through.

The flowers all started off cream. I have coloured them with three different distress inks and added gems to the centers. I have added a heart charm on chain to the main part of the card along with some ribbon and gems to the base for a bit of sparkle, which brings me on to the challenge at CRAFT challenge who wanted us to use ribbon and sparkle.

If anyone can give me some tips on vintage card making, I would be most grateful. Please feel free to tell me what I could have done better with this card as I learn from your comments.

Pink on Pink

Friday Sketchers gave us a cute sketch to work with this week, but I couldn't decide which papers to use. In the end I went with the pink theme from this weeks challenge over at One stop craft Challenge. The idea to use ribbons and buttone on this card came from this weeks challenge over at Stamp something

With the exception on the dotty paper, I have had everything I used on this card in my stash for quite a while. I am trying to stick to one of the resolutions that I made this year - "Use up old stash before buying more". I do still buy the odd new piece of stash (well you can never have too much) but I am doing well with using up what I already have.

Distressed Flame

Yes I know...... another orange one. I couldn't help it..... the colours were crying out to me.
On Tuesday A Spoonful of Sugar challenged us to use distress ink (did a little dance), pearls and glitter. So I pulled on a pair of latex gloves (having learned from blue dyed fingers last week) and started playing.

I wanted warm colours so I started with a sheet of orange and yellow paisley paper and the rest grew from there. I made an easel card using two yellow card blanks. I did this by cutting one of them in half to make the "front" of the card and folded the front of the second card blank in half. The left over half of the card blank was used to make the yellow strip across the middle and the two die cuts which I coloured with distress inks.

Enough techy stuff. I have used Spiced marmalade, Fired brick, Aged mahogany and Antique linen distress inks. The stamp is by Penny black and I have edged the image with clear glitter for some sparkle.


My eldest son said that it made him think of fire.... hence the name. The design is from the sketchat Papertake weekly, Everybody Art asked for an easel card and Kaboodles asked for fancy folds so I will be entering this card for those challenges too.

Dotty bout orange

This card came together quite easily. I saw the challenge over at Totally papercrafts "lots of spots" and knew exactly which papers and ribbon to reach for. Then I saw the challenge sketch at The Pink Elephant and thought "that's the one".

Everything was going really well until I realised that I had stuck everything onto my card upside down. I had a bit of a pout and then worked out how to fix it and my design error turned into a design feature lol. I simply folded the back of the card blank in half, added some of the textured card I had been matting with and some peel offs. This is the end result.

Mint n Lilac

My time to craft challenged us to make a project using the colour green and one other colour, so of course I went for lilac. It made sense since I already had the papers and embellies from my last project out on the table hehe.







The little lady that I used came from Charmed cards and crafts and is from the Holly and Madison range. I like to economise so I will also be entering this card for the challenges over at A spoonful of Sugar and Stamp something, who both asked for something to do with spring. I think that the colours that I used are very spring like.

Lilac Bear

Just cute bears asked us to use lilac this week. I love purple. It's definitely my favourite colour, so asking me to use it on a card makes me smile.

Everything that I have used on this card has been in my stash for quite a while. The paper that I covered the card blank with is from some HOTP papers that I bought more than five years ago. Papertake weekly asked us to use checks in our design and that is what got me searching through my stash in the first place.

I bought the bear die cut a year or so ago and have coloured it with my whispers markers. The Corrosive challenge asked us to make something with wings on, so I cut a die cut butterfly in half and covered it with white glitter before attaching it to the bear.

The design that I have used is a variation on a Christmas card that I made last year. And of course I have added my trusty peel offs.

I'm off to play some more. See you later.

Naomi

Mama Rabbit

Mothers day is fast approaching so this weeks challenge at Moving Along with the Times was perfect. We were given a great sketch to work with and the theme "MUM".

I was a bit worried about my colour scheme this week. Creative inspirations challenged us to use sepia colours and this is not a colour pallet that I have deliberately used before. I hope I pulled it off. I like the way that the colours came together :0). The little Mum tag at the bottom makes this card eligible for the challenge over at Allsorts. I get stuck when asked for tags on a card, but it's not to hard to work one in once you think about it. I coloured this one with my bronze Krylon pen and added peel off letters.

I'm loving the challenges. I'm learning new techniques every month and I'm not just dipping my toe out of my comfort zone any more...... I'm jumping right in.

Buttons n Bow

I love cards that are a little bit out of the ordinary and I am slowly building up a collection of new ideas to use. One of my favourites is the step card. I made my first one just before Christmas for my mum and I have made a few variations on the template since.



This week, SCSC challenged us to make a multi fold card of our choice. The choice was easy. Kaboodle asked us to use spots and stripes in our design. The patterned paper was free with a magazine this month which I have matted onto some Caribbean blue bazzil. The sketch that I used for the center panel came from this weeks challenge over at One Stop Challenge and the buttons and bows idea came from Totally Papercrafts.

Birthday Boy

My baby brother turns 13 in a few weeks. I knew which image I wanted to use on his card, but couldn't decide on the colour scheme or the design. Whilst I was rooting around in my stash to make my last card, I came across some red dotty paper and some black dotty ribbon. PERFECT.



I am really happy with how the card turned out, but if I use this design again, I will use a patterned paper for the back ground. Lets call this one the minimalist version lol.

Paperplay Weekly asked us to make a card for someone special, so it as the perfect excuse to start this one. I am also entering this card for the "Digi stamp" challenge over at CRAFT challenge and for the "Male card" challenge over at Charisma Cards Challenge. I think I am starting to get the hang of this male card stuff. ;0)

Chain Reaction

Whilst wondering around on my lunch break I popped into Primani. For those of you that are not familiar with Primark, it is a shop that sells clothes and house hold items for discount prices. I was wondering around the jewellery department when I saw this necklace.

As soon as I saw it I knew what I was going to do with it. About 10 minutes after I took it out of the bag I had taken it down to it's component parts. The only question I have now is - How many cards can I make with this.

This card is called Butterfly Chain and is the first card that I have made from a necklace that cost £2. I started by attaching the drop crystal to the butterfly using a jump ring. Using my wire cutters, I cut two short lengths of chain and attached them to the butterfly with more jump rings. I then mounted the newly made butterfly chain to velvet paper.

It took a lot of rooting around in my scrap box to find the the right paper. I had the idea of a touch of elegance and needed the papers to reflect that. I have finished off with some black velvet ribbon.

Since I have had everything that I used on this card for quite a while with the exception of the chain, I am going to enter this card for the "Left over scraps" challenge over at Creative Inspirations.

New look completed

I have just revamped my blog. If you find any of the colours make it hard for you to read whats going on, please leave me a comment so that I can fix it.

Thank you.
Hugs

Naomi

New look

Hey there.

Just a quick apology. I wanted a fresh look for my blog and downloaded a new template. Unfortunately this messed up my side bar and I couldn't access my dash board, so I had to get rid.

Please bear with me while I choose a new template and get everything back in order again.

Thanks

Naomi

Bearly Orange

I seem to have gotten stuck in an orange groove thanks to yesterdays shopping trip.

I had to try out my new border punch so that was the basis of this card. JUGs has a great sketch for this weeks challenge, so I used that and a lot of orange to make this card. I dyed some white crispy ribbon with Spiced Marmalade distress ink and then stamped the bear using aged mahogany distress ink and coloured it with my whispers brush pens. I coloured some white card with spiced marmalade and fired brick distress inks and embossed it. The flowers and button came from my new capsule stash and I added peel offs for the wording.

This card is for:

JUGs Sketch

CRAFT challenge Love

Papertake weekly Love

Stamp Something Love

Charisma Cards Love

Just Cute Bears Hearts

Fairy Orange

I did a naughty bit of craft shopping yesterday and bought my first border punch and the latest goody bag from Do Craft. It contains the whole of their new capsule range in sunshine. The colours are yellows, oranges and browns and there are lovely embellies, flowers, buttons etc.


Babbling now lol.




This is the first card that I made using the kit. The sketch design is from this weeks challenge at Friday Sketchers. SCSC asked us to do a monochrome plus white card. Saturday Spotlight asked us to use something teeny tiny so I have used tiny buttons and tiny pattern. My time to craft asked for fairys

Fancy Bling

I love playing with acetate, but last summer I bought some printed acetate and didn't have a clue what to do with it so I stuck it in the back of a drawer.

This week at Dotties World they challenged us to use acetate, so I was determined to put one of the five sheets that I bought to good use. This is what happened!






This card was definitely a case of "Don't think, just do" and I think I surprised myself. Most of my card blanks are 5" by 7", but I wanted something bigger for this. The acetate is A4 so I folded it in half and put a pale blue card blank in the middle to show off the pattern on the acetate a bit better.

The flower was originally white, but I coloured the bottom bloom with Dusty Concord distress ink and added a black gem. I went over board with the sakura stardream pens for the glitter effect and blinged out with more stick on gems. I need to go in search of some more of the ribbon that I used as I am running out of it now.

I'm sorry about the glare on the pic, but I have no idea how to get a good night time photo of acetate. I work during the day and it's dark by the time I get home. I tried it without the flash and it looked way worse.