Blue Christmas

I've been mainly focusing on making Christmas prezzies for friends and family lately, so I have not been making as many cards that I can blog.  I'm really pleased with the presents that I have made, but I can't blog them yet.

I have been experimenting with softer colours.  I like rich dark colours, but I am trying to branch out a bit with my style and colour choices.

Sorry about the picture.  I took it at lunch time today, but the weather is so gloomy at the mo and my camera is nothing special.  Please click on the image to get a better view.

I haven't used my Penny Black stamps in ages, so I pulled them out and had a play with one from the Holly Jolly set.  I like the cool icy colours in this card so I added 2mm gems and some ivory flat backed pearls and lots of glitter glue.

I am entering this card for the following challenges:-

Allsorts - Christmas Easel Card

Christmas stamping all year long - Jingle all the way.  I added a bell that does tinkle

Totally Papercrafts - Glitter it

Ruffled

Every now and again I go blog hopping to get some fresh ideas and learn new techniques.  One of the best ones that I have come across lately is this one Mariannes.  Her stuff is gorgeous.  I'm still trying to work out how she did half of it.  She has great tutorials on her blog and I have followed this one Magic Card.

This is the front.  I have kept it fairly simple because I used lace and was worried that there would be too much going on.

This is the card open.

 

Side View

Top View

Back View

I am entering this card for the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge Blog - Anything but a square

Papertake Weekly - Any thing goes (I also used a new technique)

Penny Black - Say it with flowers

Purr-fect Friend

I fell in love with a sketch today. Well that's a bit strong, but I'm sure you get the gist. As soon as I saw it over at Creative Inspirations I could see the completed card in my head. Finding the time to make it was more difficult.



I have backed everything onto textured black Co-ordinations cardstock. The papers all come from a HOTP cardmakers paper pack which I bought a good five years ago. I think it is called Jewel Tones. The stamp is one of my many Penny Black collections (this one is from the Hugs collection) and I have added black pearls to the corners.


I don't use faux stitching very often as it is not something that usually springs to mind, but this weeks challenge over at the Corrosive Challenge asked us to use something faux and I couldn't think of what else to do.

I love it when a card comes together!!!

A few of my favourite things

Hi everyone. I've been itching to do some crafting for a whole week now and haven't had the time. I can't tell you how good it feels to finally have some play time.

I've made a number of cards over the last few months for the festive season, but I have only just started making for friends that I work with. This one is only the fourth, so I still have quite a few to make.







I used as many of my favourite things as I could on this card. My favourite colour is purple (you might of noticed from some of my earlier cards lol) I love working with gems, charms and ribbon (I actually have trouble completing a card without some ribbon on it somewhere). I also played with my favourite colour distress ink - Dusty Concord. The only things missing were vellum, nesties and acetate, but I couldn't figure out how to fit them into the design.



The design of this card came from this weeks challenge at Papertake Weekly and I will also be entering this card for the following challenges:


A Spoon full of sugar who asked for a Christmas card with no red or green
Allsorts who asked us to use purple (that was easy)
Paperplay who also asked for a Christmas card with no red or green
And Penny Black who asked us for a girly Christmas card. I have used a Christmas tree stamp from their Jolly Follies collection.

Here is to a day of more crafting. I'm off in search of coffee now.

Hugs

Naomi

You light up my life

I just received some new Penny Black stamps in the post and really didn't need an excuse to use them. The theme over at PBSC is song lyrics. Mine is you light up my life by Westlife.

I have gold leafed the lamp post using a krylon pen and all of the snow has been done in white glitter and I couldn't resist adding some gold gems for some extra bling. Unfortunately the top panel is not quite straight, but I still think it works.

The actual design of the card came from this weeks sketch over at Papertake Weekly Challenge. Its a lovely design and very versatile.

Penny Black Snow

This has got to be the scariest card I have ever attempted. Why I hear you ask. Because it's all white!! PBSC challenged us to make an "All white" item this week. We could use colour in our image but the rest had to be white on white. I love monochromatic cards, but how many shades of white are there lol.


I loved this challenge as it really made me think out side of the box.




The picture on the left doesn't show the features very well I am afraid. The snow flakes where done with a punch using glitter board and I added a clear gem to the centers. I have edged both the edge of the aperture and the die cut with a thick coating of holographic glitter glue. I'm having fun playing with acetate at the moment, so it will probably turn up in a few more projects over the next few weeks.

Lemon Sugar

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks due to real life commitments, but it's really good to be crafting again.

The sketch for this card came from this weeks Friday Sketchers challenge. The colour scheme came from this weeks PBSC challenge which was to use Chocolate, lemon and pink. I chose an animal in response to the SCSC challenge called Animal Antics. I set myself the additional challenge of not using any patterned paper, but I couldn't resist doing a bit of embossing.

Now that I am in the swing of crafting again, I'm off to make some more cards. Have a good weekend.

Heart of Xmas

This is my entry for this weeks PBSC. This weeks challenge is called "Hearts Desire" We had to use a heart somewhere in our design as well as a Penny Black image or sentiment.

I have used three different shaped nesties on this one. There are two making the pocket (you can fit a gift card in there) and the third nestie die cut was embossed using a Cuttlebug folder and then brushed with lavender pearlescnt ink.

The Snowflake brads are from Dovecraft and the papers are from DCWV. I bought the snowflake charm on eBay and there are clear gems for an added bit of glitter. Speaking of glitter.... the pocket is edged with a pink Sakura stardust pen and I have used an aqua pen with the same stardust pen to colour the heart.

1 Card 3 Challenges

I love Penny Black stamps and my collection seems to keep growing. Not sure how.

The design for this card came from the talented team over at Friday Sketchers. They currently have an optional bonus colour challenge, but I couldn't find a good way to get orange and blue onto my card with the options that I have at home.

Over at PBSC our challenge was to make a Christmas card using a Penny Black image or sentiment, my image comes from the "Bubbly" stamp collection.

Stamp something wanted us to make a card with an animal on it. Most of my stamp collection have cute animals on them so the hardest part was which one to use.

The majority of my cards have silver on them and I am scared of pattern, so this card was a personal challenge for me. Maybe I should have called this I card 4 challenges lol.

Hope you are all having a great Bank Holiday weekend

Naomi

2 4 1

This card was made in response to 2 challenges. The actual design came from Sketch Saturday who gave us this design to work with

I love lace on cards and that was the first thing that I thought of when I saw this sketch. The second challenge was from PBSC. For this challenge I had to use a Penny Black image or sentiment and some stitching - hand, machine or faux. Since I don't own a sewing machine I went with the faux option.

I'm very much into monotone, so I stuck to two main colours on this card. I have tried to add depth with the different layers and used brads and gems to add a touch of sparkly lushness.

Summer time hugs

I've been blog surfing again and came across some new (to me) challenge blogs. This is my first entry for Stamp Something. We had to make something that made us think of summer. For me summer is about bright colours, friends and family and looking for the sunshine in everything (no matter what the weather).

I've used the brightest colours I could find in my stash and one of my collection of Penny Black stamps. I've borrowed an idea from someone else and decoupaged the flower.

My favourite nestie this week is labels three. Why my fav??? well it keeps turning up in the cards I have made this week. Last week it was labels four that I kept using.

Take a look at Stamp something when you have the time. Their DT has some brilliant ideas for all levels. There is a new challenge every Friday and you don't need to use a particular brand of stamps.

Purple shades

This is my third challenge card for today. This one is for SCSC. Our challenge was to use corners on our design.

My favourite colour is purple so it turns up on a lot of my creations. This time I decided to see how much purple I could get onto one card. I could have gotten more on there, but I was worried it would look over done.

The papers are from Daisy and Dandelions picnic patch pack. The stamp is penny black and I have used some white angel hair which I have had for ages. I find it hard to cut, but it's no problem with nesties.

Chocolate Pennies

My first card for the weekend is a challenge card for PBSC challenge 62. The challenge was to use the colours cream, tan and blue. My biggest problem with this card was which stamp to use. My collection of Penny Black stamps is growing faster than I use them and I just bought another today oops.



The background is Cinnamon coloured textured card. Both of the patterned papers are from Daisy and Dandelion Picnic Patch collection.

I cut the background for the flowers using a Cuttlebug die. The ribbons I used are cream and chocolate and the brads are chocolate brown.

Lemon and Sage

I have a list of things that I plan to learn how to do at some point in the future and tri-fold cards have been on the list for a while. One of the ladies over at CBC recently started a thread talking about them and I just had to have a go. This is my first attempt.

I have made it for the PBSC challenge 60 - Summer. I have just discovered Anitas dimensional stickers, so I just had to give those a go. They are a lovely addition to a card.

I used lemon and sage coloured textured card which has a nice sheen to it.

Soft, Sweet Pennies

Happy Saturday to you all. I for one am glad it's the weekend. This week has been fairly successful from a work point of view, but now it is time to relax and kick back.

This is my Entry for this weeks PBSC which is titled Soft and Sweet.

I used my newest set of nesties on this one. I'm loving the layering effects that you can get with them. I tried to keep the colours light and bright and had some fun trying to thread some ribbon through the button.

I keep forgetting that I can die cut flowers, so I am going to have to make a point of making them more often. I also need to get some more of this crispy ribbon as I am running out.

I'm getting the hang of the camera better now, so the quality of my photos has gone up a bit, but I am still looking at getting a new camera so that I can show off some of the details in my cards better.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Naomi x

Swirly Pennies

This is my entry for this weeks challenge over at PBSC The challenge was to include swirls in the design. I have had the backgroud paper for a while, but the stamp is fairly new. The lace is by LLB and the swirly diecut is from my stash. I can't remember where I bought it.

Take a look at the DT cards over at PBSC they are lovely.

Colour challenge

Colour challenge this week over at PBSC we had to use the colours red, white and blue. I couldn't get a good shot of the card as I kept getting glare, even with the flash turned off.

I only seem to be making challenge cards lately. Need to do some just for fun. All of this heat has sucked the energy out of me

Dotty about PBSC

My mojo finally came back from its hols. It feels like so long since I made anything. I am so glad it is back.

This card is for challenge 55 on PBSC. We where given a lovely sketch to follow and this is what I came up with. Gave me a chance to play with my Nesties :0)

Embossed pennies

The latest challenge by PBSC really made me think. The challenge was to use some embossing in your work. I don't really do any embossing so it was lucky that I hadn't used up all of my stash from the CBC colour swap a little while ago. The stash that I received from the swap included some embossed card and papers. (lucky me :0))

It's pretty cloudy today, so the lighting on my picture is worst than usual. Sorry about that. I enjoyed this challenge.

Pennies from heaven

Two cards made using Penny blacks gorgeous stamps. I'm still fairly new to stamping, but I already have a couple of fav brands and a wish list.

I wanted to make a card for the PBSC but couldn't decide on the design. In the end I made two, but the orange one is my actual entry.