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.

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.

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.

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

Ivory Mum

I'm working on mothers day cards at the moment and the challenge over at Dotties World inspired the colour choice of this card. We could only use white, cream and the lightest of browns.

I have used Ivory Bazzil card to give the main colour. I also used some pale gold card for matting. To this I added some printed vellum, stick on gems, crispy ribbon, a mothers day poem and a couple of fabric flowers. I edged the poem, fabric flowers and image with aged mahogany distress ink.

I seem to have a thing about easel cards recently. I must go and see if I can find any tutorials for other card folds.

Hello 2010

Happy New year to you all!!! I hope you all had a wonderful festive holiday.

I have finally made some cards using the new (but way too small) stash that I bought in the January sales :0)

The first was made using a Sketch from Friday Sketchers. My new item on this card is the Antique linen distress ink pad that I used to give the base colour of the bear (it was originally white). I also edged the Bear with a Aged Mahogany distress ink pad.

For some reason Cute Card Thursday always makes me think of bears. They asked us to use something new or do something to represent new beginnings, so I think my new ink pad counts.

I couldn't decide what words to put on this card, so I have left it blank for now. It might get saved for fathers day or it might be good for a boys birthday card.