80 year old whiskey

One of the guys at work is going to his grandmothers 80th birthday party this weekend and asked me to make her a card.  I asked him what sort of things he would like on the card and he said "put some of that doily stuff on it" pointing at the lace on another card I had made.  "Oh, and she likes whiskey".   That was my brief for this card.

I have matted some red/very dark pink design paper on to brown card and then added lace.  I have been playing with my label die cuts and altering to see what other shapes I can come up with.  I quite like the tag shapes I have made, so I used one here.  I have tied the top with dark red lace and finished off with flowers, glitter glue, leaves and peel offs.

It's a simple card, but Ian was really please with it.  I hope his grandmother is too.

I am entering this card for the following challenges:
A spoon full of sugar - Anything goes
Everybody Art - Tags
Papertake weekly - Bloom and grow

Apples in Distress

I have called this one "Apples in Distress" because the colours I have used are candy apple red and apple green.

This is my second attempt at making one of these cards (My first is called Ruffles).

I love working with my distress inks, but I have restrained myself some what and have only used Vintage Photo on this one.  I have done my version of distressed embossing (brush of a bit of the embossing powder before heating and don't let it achieve a smooth finish) think Tim Holtz.  the edges of the paper have been distressed using my ranger distressing tool.

The Crafty Pad challenged us to use  "holes" in our project, so I have made an aperture.  Quite easy to do with this design of card.  The Corrosive challenge asked for a birthday card.

I will also be entering this one for the challenge at Kaboodle Doodles,  who have a tic tac toe challenge.  I chose flowers, die cut and embossing.

Funky Diva

This card was a lot of fun to make.  Mainly have to admit because I got to use only of my bargains.  I found sheets of Bo Bunny velvet flocked 12x12 cardstock for just 50p a sheet.  Well I had to buy some and the colours are brilliant.

The design for my card came from this weeks sketch challenge at Stamptacular Sunday.  Spots and dots where the requirement over at The Crafty Pad and Kaboodle Doodle asked us for lots of layers.  I have used a Kenny K digi stamp (love their stuff) and added glitter to her boots, because she needed more bling.

Pearl Tea

I just had to have a go at the challenge over at Allsorts this week.  Use three or more stamps.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be and it was great for a quick make.

The three flourish stamps came from the same set ( sorry I don't know the name any more) and the happy birthday from a Daisy and Dandelion set that I have.

All of the stamping  and edging has been done in Tea Dye Distress ink.  I have also coloured a couple of the roses with it to get them to match the rest o f the card.  Yes, Ive gone with the flowers again (just couldn't resist - love 'em.  I have added some mocha flat back pearls for added interest.

Cream Cake

SCSC challenged us to make a card or project using old stash.  Well that was easy as I have loads.  The main design paper I have used came from a scrapbooking kit I bough about five and a half years ago.  I only recently found out that it is good for vintage cards (still getting to grips with those).

I have had to use different bits for this card as I didn't have enough to do everything I had planned.  The design for this card came from this weeks challenge sketch over at Everybody Art.

Moving along with the times asked us to include a cake and that helped me to choose which stamp to use and One Stop Craft Challenge asked us to make a birthday card.  I find challenges are a great way to get inspiration for new cards and I think this just proves it :o)

I didn't have flowers in the colours that  I wanted, so I have inked a few of the smaller ones with Tea Dye Distress ink and all of the flowers have had a little bit of gold glitter glue added.  I have also added iridescent glitter glue to the icing on the cake.

March

Another page for my birthday calendar. I know I have missed out February, but I printed out all of the months with 31 days, so I have decided to start with those.

I started the same way as I did on January, with a blank sheet of thick white card. This time I have edged with Milled lavender distress ink and stamped with Dusty Concord.

The center panel design was taken from this weeks challenge over at JUGs. I've kept it tonal once again. I think that this calendar is going to end up quite monochromatic on each page. Lets hope that I don't run out of colours :0).

The Corrosive Challenge asked us for something to do with birthdays, so i thought the birthday calendar would fit right in. Allsorts Challenge blog asked us for animals, and the hedgehog theme of the calendar fits in nicely there as well.

Lilac and Lemon

When Papertake Weekly asked us to use lilac and lemon this week, it was really no hardship. Lilac is one of my favourite colours and that particular colour combination looks very fresh.

I have used a long tall card blank for this one, a size that I don't normally use. The image is a digi stamp from Charmed cards and crafts and I have inked the edges of a couple of the flowers using mustard seed distress ink.

I think that this colour combo is very spring like so I will also be entering this card for the "Spring" challenge over at Allsorts.

Spring time citrus

I love learning new techniques. I'm trying to learn something new every month so I am always on the look out for something a bit out of the ordinary.

This week at JUGs they gave us the instructions on how to make a Flap card and challenged us to make one. It didn't take me long to realise that this is a variation on card that I already make, but it did teach me some new ideas on how to use it.

I like using vibrant colours on cards so I didn't need much prodding to get me to use the citrus colours for this weeks challenge at CRAFT. I have used orange, lemon and lime. I also tried some pink grapefruit, but it didn't quite fit so I left it out.

The colours also fit in nicely with the challenge over at Penny Black, who asked us to use spring colours. I don't seem to be able to make a card these days without some distress ink on it. This card has spiced marmalade and dried marigold. I got stuck for what to do with the middle, so I have gone with a less is more approach :0)

Glimmer

Totally papercrafts asked us to make a project with something with wings, so I got out a digi stamp that I bought recently and began to play. I think that these are the most therapeutic card, because you don't really think you just do. I have used my gelly roll glitter pens to give her an all over glimmer. The only part of her that isn't glittered is her skin.

Originally she was going to sit on a skeleton leaf, but I couldn't get it to look right. I haven't used them in years and I wanted to use up the ones sitting in my draw. Out of practice I guess.

I've used spring colours, because the weather has been cold and miserable here and I needed a pick me up. The butterfly charm is for the charm challenge over at Creative Inspirations and the butterfly's are for the challenge over at Charisma Cards.

I like the way the colours have come together on this one. I'm experimenting with different and larger flowers at the moment so I have included one that I put together a few days ago. I have layered some flowers for when I need a quick card. I also keep my pre done decoupage in the same box. You can have an effective card in 10 minutes or less that way.

Punky Pink

This week I was only allowed one crafty shopping trip and that was because I had run out of glue dots. In addition to the dots I bought 2 - yes only 2 - sheets of A4 card. I have a strict budget at the mo so I couldn't have the other items I wanted.

This morning, when I saw the spots and dots challenge over at One Stop Challenge, I had the perfect excuse to use the first sheet which is pink with white dots. I did a bit more blog hopping and noticed that Allsorts challenge this week is to use pink, black and white, so that just cemented the chose of papers to use.

I started a stair step in black textured card and then added a block of white glitter paper as a base. As I was cutting the two pink strips, I realised that the card that I had bought was double sided, so I used the flip side as a frame for the image.

I have layered pink crispy ribbon with Black dotty grosgrain (I think that is what it is called lol) and added peel offs, flowers and gems to finish it off. The design that I used for the center panel comes from this weeks challenge over at Friday Sketchers.

Tiggerriffic

This started out as a card for a man, but by the time it was finished, I realised that the image I have used may not work that way. Luckily I have friends that it may be appropriate for so hohum.... All's well and all that lol

I can't wait to play with paper these days, but course work, house work and kids come first, so I am not getting as much crafting time as I would like.

This week I have learned the value of taking more time with projects. Sketch Saturday gave us a great sketch to work with this week, so off I went sticking stuff down without checking what I was doing. After sticking down the second piece I realised that I had stuck things down in the wrong order. Design disaster??? NO. New inside for the card. I just flipped the card blank over and started a new "front". I've reversed the oder of the papers on the new front and used a maatching sized die cut.

I'm trying to create a stockpile of Birthday cards for just in case so the challenge over at Kaboodles fits the bill for this one. I'm also going to enter this card for anything goes over at Ooh La La.

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.

Pink and Blue

A few weeks ago, I discovered an addiction to die cut decoupage. The result was a CD box full of ready made decoupage just in case I ever needed to make a quick card. I'm doing well enough to admit that I was addicted now lol.

Anyway, I have decided that I need to use some of them up if I want to buy some more and this is what I have made. I think they are cute and I am already on the lookout for more from this range. I don't usually make two cards the same, but I thought a variation on a theme was warranted here. :-)

Need Nesties

I had a friend over for a crop today and we spent so much time talking craft stuff that we only managed one card each in four hours!!! The end result for me was one card that I am really pleased with and the burning need to go out and buy nestabilities.