Feathered

Quick make time for me.

I love doing challenges.  They keep the creative juices flowing and the design team makes are amazing.  I really enjoy trying to work out how they did some if the things in their projects.

This card was first inspired by this weeks challenge over at Secret Crafters Saturday Challenge.   They asked for our feathered friends.  That gave me the perfect excuse to use my new feathers.  Paperplay Challenges weekly and CRAFT Challenge asked for Animals/critters galore, respectively so I used my new Pink petticoat stamps (I used my worn lipstick ink pad for this).

The colour scheme came from this weeks challenge at One Stop Craft Challenge who asked for monochrome.  Well my feathers are baby pink so I went with pink and white.  I have highlighted a few areas on the bird and created a border using some iridescent glitter glue and added a few gems for some added bling.

Vintage Birthday

Hands up, who likes playing with distress inks?

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Sorry, I had both hands in the air. I love them. I'm still working on buying the full set, but I have a good play as often as I can.

I've used every shade of brown that I have on this card. I actually made it last night, but had to wait until today to photograph it. I started with a white card blank to which I stuck some cream swirly patterned card. After a bit of ink play, I added a piece of die cut textured card (which I distressed and inked) and a card topper from my stash. I have added some Gems for interest and the flowers.


The design of this card was taken from the sketch on Friday Sketchers and as the card has what I think is a slightly vintage feel (still getting to grips with that one) I will be entering it for the monthly challenge over at Creatalicious Challenges.

Leaf Fairy

The Color Dare challenged us to use pink, green and black. I don't have many green papers, so choosing the one to use for this challenge was fairly easy. There is a lovely sketch over at Card Patterns, so my card is based on that. I bought a new border punch this week and this is the first time that I have used it. Might take a bit of practice to get it just right I think :0)

I love digi stamps. You can re size them to fit any project. I always print a few per sheet in different sizes so that I usually have something suitable for a project.

Stamp something asked us to put doodles on our design. Not something that I usually do, but I have tried my hand at some faux stitching. My Sakura glitter pens came out again for that added fairy shimmer.

Variation on a theme

I made a card this morning for my boss and was a bit frustrated that I couldn't do more with it as she doesn't like fuss and frills. To get over that I made another one like it :0)




I was able to do more with this one, but discovered that I really didn't need to add much more to make the card more effective. Don't get me wrong..... I like how the first card turned out, I just would have liked to have done more with it. I find making tonal or monochromatic cards very therapeutic, so I have tried to stick with two closely related colours for this one.



With this version I have added white card, vellum, brads and more gems. I have used one of my new digi stamps and edged the die cut in silver. I have added glitter to the wings for a bit of sparkle and used a fine gold gel pen on the jewellery she is wearing. I seem to have a thing about winged creatures at the moment as they keep turning up in my cards. I think that it is a very girly card so I will be entering it for the challenges at Simon Says and Stamp Something. Charisma Card Challenge asked us to use fairies which is what finalised my decision for which image to use.

I was going to do more with the center panel of the card, but it was starting to get a bit bulky and I was worried in case it needed to be sent in the post. I think that I wont use the brads in the center panel next time I make one of these.

I'm still trying to work out how to show a larger image when you click on the photos, so please bare with me on that.

Hugs to you all

Naomi

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.

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.

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.

Inspired by Mel

Can I just start by saying that this card was totally inspired by a very talented lady called Melissa. You can see her blog here. I have been making making cards using acetate for quite a while, putting all of the design on the top layer. I had never thought of doing the layering using the acetate itself.

The sketch that I used came from this weeks challenge over at A spoonful of Sugar and the colour scheme is inspired by this weeks challenge over at JUGS.

Rather than using a ribbon I have used a line of gems to replace part of the sketch. I have also replaced the buttons on the sketch with Snowman shaped gems. The snowman stamp came from Penny Blacks Jolly Folly stamp set. I have added glitter glue for sparkle and dimension on the snowman. I find the hardest thing about using acetate is getting it to photograph right.

I always take photos of the cards that I make in case I get stuck for ideas. Then I can revisit stuff that I have done in the past.

I'm off to make another card. I love crafting holidays.

Take care ;0)

Fancy in Blue

This is my first attempt at an easel card. I keep seeing them on peoples blogs, but never had the guts to give it a go. So glad that I did. They are quite easy to make. I used an ordinary card blank, scored an extra fold and added acetate.

I wasn't sure how best to photograph it, so my apologies for putting so many pictures up.

I used whispers brush marker and Sakura Gelly roll pens to colour the image and the mirri board and glitter paper have been in my stash for so long that I don't know where they came from. I've gone a bit overboard on the sparkle, but hey.... every girl has to have some glitz in her life. :0)

I'm entering this card for the "3 snowflakes challenge" over at Dotties World

Starry Starry Night

When I saw this weeks challenge over at Dotties World I knew exactly which papers I was going to reach for. I have had the starry paper for a little while, but this is the first time it has made it onto a card.



The sketch is my interpretation of this weeks sketch at The Crafty Pad and I think that this one will also fit the "Swirly Girly" challenge over at Cute Card Thursday and "the Glitzy somethings" challenge over at Stamp Something.



I'm surprised that I haven't gotten fed up of making Christmas cards after having started them in June, but there is so much out there to play with and I don't think that I bought even half of what I liked.


I'm off to see if I can get one more card in before I start the ironing.


Hope you all had a good weekend.

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

Dotty Fairy

I've had a long busy day, but I had to play with paper before bed.

SFOS challenged us to make a card that was brown with either pink or blue as the second colour. As you can see..... I chose pink. I've embossed some metallic brown car that I have had for years. (I was clearing out when I found it again and ended up playing instead). the pink dotty paper is from my scrap box and the ribbon, gems where part of a naughty buy a month or so ago.

The actual design of the card has come from MAWTT who gave us a lovely sketch to work with.

All inked up

Sometimes a card just happens. I was playing with my embossing folders and distress inks and this card.........happened. I really like this combination of colours. They are nice and bright and not at all Christmassy. It feels as though all I have made for a while is Christmas cards lol. (I started back in June.)

The colours that I have used are Broken china, Fired Brick and Spiced marmalade. The image is "Madison with attitude" from Charmed Cards and Crafts.

Cute Cards Thursday challenged us to make a project with teenagers in mind and I hope this fits the bill.

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.

Lacie Blue

The Sugar Bowl gave us a lovely sketch to work from this week. We had to use a Sugar Nellie stamp and lace.

The purple and blue background papers where created by using distress inks on white card and then embossing. I have also used some black ribbon for the detailing at the top of the card along with a couple of gems. The stamp is called "Just a girl" and is one of my current favourites.

Sorry the picture is so blurry.

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.

Sweet n Simple

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. Moving along with the times set us a sketch to follow with the instruction to use a background paper with text on it.

Choosing the paper was easy. This is from Papermanias "Naughty and Nice Christmas" paper pack.

The image is from a free stamp that I got with a crafting magazine.

I think that this one is Simple and sweet!

Black and Orange

I don't make Halloween cards, but I have been asked to make a goth style card for a friends granddaughter and the "orange plus one colour" theme over at SCSC inspired me to make this card.

The actual design of the card was inspired by the sketch for this weeks challenge over at Sketch Saturday

The background black and orange paper was created using makeup sponges and ink dabbed onto white card. I did the same with the sentiment plaque (which is edged in black). I have used an orange card blank, which is unusual in the fact that I usually only use white card blanks to work with.

I have used 2mm black ribbon to create the four "lines" and black lace for a slightly scalloped edge.

As much as the colours I have used are very Halloweeny, this is a birthday card. I hope she likes it.

Bearly an angel

I few months ago I bought loads of die cut bears. I made quite a lot of cards with them, but the rest have been sitting around doing nothing.

Secret Crafters Saturday Challenge this week was to make a project with wings on it. The wings that I have used were originally a die cut butterfly. I have Aqua brushed using a clear Sakura star dust pen and added a few gems.

I have added a little wire halo as a finishing touch. I don't think that it shows up to well in the pictures. The papers are from the Daisy and Dandelion "A winters tale" paper pack.