underwater crowning glory

I love aurora wings images, I'm not really into digital stamps but when I won some of these I just fell in love with Mitzi's images, have to say she can really draw faces which sadly many digital images seem to fail at doing,in my opinion anyway. I coloured this sea princess with promarkers and added some liquid pearls to her crown for a little added dimension and because it just felt they should be there.

I love how her hair just seems to be flowing in the water. I filled my area with colour and rounded the corners for a softer look.

I wanted to keep the image as the focus of my card so decided on a white square base card and instead of backing paper I decided to use some diecut flourishes for my backing of the image.

I cut them in some metallic card I have had for ages it has like an iridescent blue gold sheen and always reminds me of tropical seas well how I dream they would look never having been anywhere tropical. I added them to form a frame and randomly stuck some water drops to represent bubbles.

I know its not the best photo in the world but I guess you get the idea .

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges;-

Aurora wings - anything goes

crafty catz anything goes with a twist of use dies or punches

Polkadoodle -anything goes

daring card makers- sparkle and shine

cardz 4 galz - fairytale /fantasy

crafting with an attitude - always anything goes

crafty girls creations - always anything goes

perfectly created chaos - anything goes

Watercolour wash birthday

In my family the birthdays and anniversaries are fairly clustered together, there are three groups really, one that runs from the end of July to the first week of September, a smaller group within 3 weeks of October and another cluster from the beginning of December through to 4th February.
If I were to buy cards which I don't there is never much choice during the winter months, I guess in the card industry they think people don't have birthdays during the months leading up to Christmas, and as shops start Christmas earlier and earlier need I say more.

I tried to play with some distress inks and have a go at a water colour wash and make a warm graduated effect, mainly as they are my mums colours, she love autumn.

I also used the memory box chrysanthemum die  corner  as mum also loves the flower.I cut 2 in gold mirri card and placed in the corners of my painted card.

I added a gold mirri card butterfly in the centre and a sprinkling of gold sequins.

I cheated with the sentiments and used peel-off stickers in gold in the corners to balance the card. Hope mum likes it.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Memory Box challenges - sequins

Animal friends -halloween/autumn

(hope a butterfly counts for an animal)

The cutie pie challenge - 5 of a kind

HLS - anything goes with dies

fab n funky - fabulous flowers

create and makes - anything goes optional use a die

Memory box art deco roses birthday wishes

I always think it must have been a bit of a magical era especially where fashion was concerned in making the girls and ladies who wore it feel so glamorous ,elegant and girly, how times and fashion changes, although certain elements do seem to reappear all be it tweaked for re-invention.   I do love the idea of the glam dresses and hats but I also think the languid fashions called for long lanky stick insect bodies, something I most definitely have never had and no amount of dieting will ever aid me to achieve and be healthy either lol.

My niece must also share this love of the the period and fashion as she buys many cards with the elegant ladies adorning the fronts. She has a birthday soon so I had a rumage through my stash to see what I could come up with and saw this fab memory box corner die which I thought would be perfect.

Mackintosh roses in abundance I cut them in black glossy card and backed them with red mirri card. I cut 4 and formed a frame on a white base square card.

The central image and alphabet stamps are from the stamp man aspects of design and are among some of my first bought rubber stamps. I stamped in black versafine and fussy cut them all out. I finished my lady with some liquid enamel earings and promarker red lipstick.

Quite a simple design but I think quite striking too.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

creative with stamps -sentiment

simply create too - black white and one other colour

creatalicious - anything goes optional celebrate

cards in envy - frame it

always using rubber - it's not all black and white

morgans art world -anything goes

that's crafty - all of a sparkle

Bullrush birthday

My in laws live in Tenerife and birthday cards are apparently very hard to come by and if you do find them they are extremely expensive. There is quite a big group of ex-pats many in their silver years and the only cards that don't fall into the really expensive group are those from the church shop which after receiving some tend to be made from recycled bits from bought cards and the insides of envelopes. There is one craft shop in Los Cristianos where they live but obviously there is no one in their circle who is a crafter with the money to spend on local supplies.

My mum in law is always saying to me that I could make a fortune selling cards. I don't think they charge much for the cards they have in the church shop and they give the money raised to charity , so I don't want to take money from that but my mum in law said they are desperate for cards for guys and anniversary cards but they have to be light weight for posting.                                                                               I put my thinking cap on and came up with these for starters. I used memory box cattails die and cut them out in mirri card , gold and bronze. I also cut them out on a white piece of card that I would use for my card layering matt.  I used moon-glow spritz sprays to colour the matting layer before in laying the metallic cattail die cut. 

I added a colour matt under the spritzed layer on a 240gsm card base trying to keep the weight down. I cut a 'happy birthday' sentiment using a Britannia die in co-coordinating metallic card to match the colour matt layer on each card and hopefully these will go down well.

I have made a few other cards to send to Tenerife for them to sell hopefully they will make a little more money for charity and if they go down well make enough to pay for me posting them out there too. I have tried to get my mum in law into card making but its just not her cup of tea so hopefully this will help. 

I would like to enter these cards into the following challenges;-

cardz for guyz - nature

Noor design uk - CAS or fully loaded

Card mania - Sparkles and bling

the Male room - leaves and or trees

(A cattail definitely has leaves hope they count)

crafty cardmakers - birthdays

whoopsi daisy - die cuts and punches

613 Ave create - anything goes optional green and gold

Nice weather for...

...ducks!

I love this cute 'Dunno duck' from High hopes he just makes me smile and when I found this die background (although I just bought it as I thought it was fun and hadn't any idea how I would use it) and rediscovered this little fella I knew they just had to get together.                                                                               I first cut the die out and embossed it on white card , I love how the embossing gives the detail on the raindrop tracks.                                                                                                                          I then stamped my duck so he appeared to be sitting in the puddles and coloured him with promarkers.

I used some blue metallic pattered card to back the die cut extending the length to form a square and making the water appear shallow like a huge puddle. It also coloured the splashes and the rain drops.

It does look a little odd if you look closely as the perspective is obviously wrong as the duck is a layer above the blue but from any kinda distance it gives the appearance of a duck having a splash in a puddle during a rain shower.

I think it would be the perfect card to make someone smile be it as a get well, just because or even a birthday like a milestone that we are all suppose to dread reaching lol. 

I would like to enter this card in to the following challenges:-

Passion for promarkers -add texture

shopping our stash - duck,duck,goose

the paper girls - splish splosh

IDIC - square cards

get creative challenges - stitching

(I think my rain trails look like stitching)

cute card thursday - CAS

crafty catz - birds of a feather

QKR -cut it up

stempelsonne -anything goes

MFP - birds CAS

CAS christmas wishes

I wouldn't normally start making my Christmas cards yet as I prefer to make them when the weather has started to get that crispy nip of winter and I so cling to the idea that is summer even if I don't feel like we have had a real summer yet, but I live in hope lol.

I used a docrafts xcut snowflake and cut it out in silver mirri-card and also pale blue pearlised card and overlaid one on the other but slightly off-set.

I used the same pale blue card as a backing for the happy Christmas die from memory box, a quick and easy card to put together but I think has a clean crisp winter day feel.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Kraftin kimme saturday challenge - pick a holiday

ABC challenge - Q is for quick

Brown sugar - anything goes

Polkadoodles - anything goes

Auds sentiments - anything goes

crafting when we can - Christmas

craft your passion - anything goes

crafting from the heart - anything goes

pink and girly

I struggle with pink and overly loaded or fussy cards so this is a problem when I need a pink and girly card. I was having a rummage looking for inspiration and found this printed decoupage set which I thought might fit the bill for my sister in laws 40th birthday later this month.

I added some extra sparkle with stickles to both the shoes and bag and the background. 

The background paper is fro birdhouse free printables and the butterfly was recycled from a card my mum received.She pulls any bits off bought cards she thinks I may be able to use, and the colours of it were perfect.

The sentiment is left over from a kanban kit from qvc years ago.

Just got to remember to post it on time now.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges;-

Crafty friends - special occasion

The crafter's cafe -use lots of pink

Crafts galore encore -anything goes

A bit more time to craft - anything goes

MFP - anything goes

crafting with dragonflies - pinktober

Alphabet challenge - P is for pink

In the pink - flower power