Lady Raven Split

I really don't need much of an excuse to get my distress inks out, so this weeks challenge at The Crafty Pad was right up my street.  I grabbed my two current favorite colours and started to play.  I have used Dusty Concord and Broken China with some black soot to add the features.

The Corrosive Challenge asked us to "come to the dark side" so I knew I was going to use a Kenny K digi stamp and the challenge at Stamptacular Sunday just cinched it as they asked us to put a diva - girl with attitude on our creation.

If you have been on my blog before you may have seen a card I made called Wanda in red.  On it I used an earring that I bought in a local shop.  The diamonte cross I have used on this one is the other one to the set.  I love using non crafting items in my projects.  I used wire cutters to cut the back off of this stud.  I struggled a bit with the other one when I tried to bend it.  A bit of hot glue is holding it in place.

Star Man

Bizzy Becs Creatalicious Challenge asked us to make a male card this month.  We needed to include 3 stars and the colour brown.  I started off by embossing 3 die cut stars and then colouring them with Broken china, aged mahogany and black soot distress inks.  I was going for a rusted blue metal look.  I'm trying to use up old stash so that I can justify buying new stash, so I have been digging through my paper drawers and found some buttery card and some brown spotty paper from a HOTP paper pack years ago.

I have used a digi stamp that I got ages ago and I have edged it with Vintage photo and Tea dye distress inks.  I edged everything with black glitter for some sparkle and added a black button with a black bow to finish off.

I will also be entering this card for the challenge at Craft Your Passion who also asked for a male card and Totally Papercrafts who asked us to use digi stamps.

All Tied Down

I really enjoy making Christmas cards in non traditional colours. I find it more of a challenge as the papers can be harder to come by (limited craft shop availability when I usually start in June/July) and I have to think a little bit harder about what I am going to use as a focal point.


This one started life as an ordinary rectangular card blank which I die cut to get the shape. I have continued on with the same set of dies through out the card.

I'm not sure where I am going wrong, but whenever I use glitter glue, my page warps. This time I decided to use this to my advantage and have curved the edges a bit before applying the glue. As a result none of the coloured pieces lay flat which emphasises the textures that I have used.

I've raised the topper with foam pads to help to give the cards some depth.

This card was inspired by:

Everybody Art - Different shaped cards

Moving Along With the Times - Christmas theme

Paper Play Challenges - Shaped card

Papertake Weekly - Photo Inspiration - I took the colours from this one.

Inked Oriental

I love using digi stamps and right now, the manga style ones are my favourite. I bought this one from Stitchy Bear. Manga is great because you can really go crazy with the colours and nothing needs to look natural. I can see this one getting used a lot :-)




The design for this card came from this weeks challenge over at Creative Inspirations. Paperplay Challenges asked us to use no patterned papers which is what inspired the colour choice. I enjoy embossing and using distress inks. I think that you get a really good contrast from dusty concord and broken china which are the colours that I have used. Every thing else has fit around that. Not a bad look considering I have only use black card and white card lol.




A Spoonful of Sugar asked for a birthday card, so this one fit in nicely.

Distressed Male

I always have problems coming up with ideas for male cards, so I was really surprised when the idea I had for the sketch challenge over at Allsorts was for a card for a teen aged boy.

I started with a pale blue card blank and added some black c'oridinations card, some scraps of white card and a couple of buttons. I have used two different embossing folders on my white scraps and coloured them with Broken China distress ink. The image that I used is Mikey from Dotties world.

Spicey one

You might want to get your sunglasses before you look at this make.



Inspired by the colours in this weeks JUGs and the calendar required for SCSC challenge this week. I came up with this.






The funny thing is, I had just made a card last night using the same set of distress inks that I used today. (I do have more, promise.) The colours that JUGs asked us to use were so similar, I just had to use them again. I have used several layers of ink on this one to make the colours more rich and intense. I wasn't sure about the orange textured card that I backed it onto to start off with, but the more I looked at it, the more it seemed to fit.

The flower is made from Tim Holtz Grunge paper and was coloured with Fired brick distress ink and then stamped with a dotty stamp that I bought a while ago. Again I have used fired brick, spiced marmalade and broken china on white card which I have embossed using Cuttlebug folders.

I actually made the flower several weeks ago when I was experimenting with grunge paper, but could never figure out what to put it on. It has held it's shape really well.