Two for the price of one

I recently decided to venture into the world of distress inks and bought some of the new oxide ones, I am still learning but love the results you get just from being messy. 

I loved the backgrounds I created so much I decided to use them for my fathers day cards. I decided to keep them fairly clean and simple and use some die cuts cut in white card. I used memory box,open studio and poppy stamps dies. I cut a stitched rectangle , well 2  to create a frame , I love these as they give an embossed stitched line around the edge. I used this to create the frame for my card and attached over my background and trimmed to size.

I cut the bulrush and stuck into position. The sentiment I created using one of the 'happy' words  from the happy birthday background die . The 'father's day' is a stampman stamp which I stamped in versamark and embossed in white powder on vellum. I used tape behind the sentiment to attach to the card. 

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

4 crafty chicks - father's day

Craft - father's day /male

Creative Knockouts - embossing

AAA - embossing

cards und more -father's day

Penny's -anything goes

Time out challenges -flowers and friends make life's garden

My 2nd  followed the same  design but I used a different coloured background,

 a different 'happy' and also added a dazzling dragonfly .

I love how it changes the look of the card totally. One of these cards not sure which yet will be winging its way to Tenerife to my father in law so it needed to be fairly CAS and fit into an envelope.

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

Cardz for guys -fav colour combo

(I love blues and greens and white)

The Male room - stash

Do-AlKreatives - let's talk our love

Auds sentiments - anything goes

Creative Inspirations - anything goes

stampavie and more - man or boy

Cottage trellis

I love the poppystamps cottage platform die and side panels but I set myself a task of thinking of a different way to use this die and came up with the idea of a gate fold matchbook style card using the fence panel of the cottage platform as a trellis. I cut my card to the size of the die and fed the end I wasn't cutting the trellis from through the die so it didn't cut the base area of the die and then turned the card round and repeated the process on the other end of the card.

I used another poppystamps die the brighton flower border and coloured it with promarkers inspired by the clematis flowering in my garden earlier than they should be .I attached these to the 2 trellis panels.

I decided that the card needed something extra so used anther piece of card and embossed it with a wall embossing folder and coloured it with a mix of brown red and orange inks. I then attached to one of the trellis side and turned my gate fold style card into  a matchbook style card. I added 3 little butterflies again coloured with promarkers.

My mum hasn't been too well the last couple of days so I decided to send her a card to cheer her up and as she loves her garden this seemed like the perfect card to do this . She has a black cat so I added one to her card again a poppy stamps die and coloured it with distress inks.

My mum loved the card and the cat and said she is feeling a little better.

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

poppystamps challenge - flower power

Double D - flowers galore

Crafty galz corner - flowers

creative craft cottage - include an animal

retro flowers

I love this stamp ,it was one of the first I bought from The stamp man when I started delving into the world of rubber stamping and card making . I love it for another reason too ,it reminds me of my Gran and Great -granny now neither with us any more. My granny use to fascinate me when she set her hair , I was mesmerised as a child as once she had washed her hair she took big metal clips that were about 6 inches long and about 1/2 inch wide and looked like long thin hair clips or claws of now. She would push her hair upwards and attach the clips and wait for her hair to dry and she'd remove the clips and her hair would look just like this picture. I was never able to find any clips like them in any shops and I did look ( but I found a picture of some see below and now I have really short hair I found some for sale on eBay) even as a child as my hair was always dead straight , I think they must have been something that had lasted her lifetime as when I look at pictures of her from her wedding day onwards she always had the same hairstyle and she was born in 1893.

I stamped the image on white card and coloured with promarkers. 

I decided to frame the image with some brushed metallic silver card as I wanted to create a card with soft colours for a change as I usually go to bright colours. I created a background using more stamps from the stampman set and again stamped on white card this time with a grey ink. I layered this on more brushed metallic silver card.

I finished the card using this fab poppystamps art deco roses die which I coloured with spun sugar distress inks and layered these in the corners.

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

Creative with stamps -flowers

Glitter n sparkle -for a lady

Cupcake inspirations- photo challenge/mothers day

Tuesday throwdown - texture

Use your stuff - metallics

Crafty catz -more than 2 layers

power poppy power and spark - frame it up

Fussy cut Flutterby

I love butterflies and this butterfly collage is no exception . I decided to try something a little different this time.I die cut the collage on a white base card . I added another  sheet of card beneath the die cut but first randomly coloured it with patches of pinks purples and reds.

I then fussy cut around the edge of the butterflies nearest the opening of the card.

I decided to use this card as a thank you card so added a sentiment using a gold peel off ,quite quick to make but love how it turned out.

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

Pearly sparkles- things with wings

The crafty addicts -die cuts

crafting when we can - bright and colourful

Dream Valley -things with wings

Cards in envy- favourite colours

( I love purples and lilacs and blues together 

and pink just seemed to work too)

cute card thursday - dies and punches

MAWTT- butterflies

Spring and the start of a new adventure

My niece and her fiance have just moved into their first home together, they have been looking forward to this for so long and I am so happy for them as they start a new chapter in the adventure of their lives together.

I made a card for them and hopefully it will be one of the first things to drop through their letter box rather than brown envelopes.

I used this fun LOTV stamp and coloured with promarkers after stamping on an open studio by memory box basics stitched rectangles on white card. I cut another plain rectangle slightly larger than the image rectangle and coloured the edge with the same colour I used for the clock on the image.

I decided to add a simple hand written sentiment to finish off.

I wanted to add something to finish the card but wasn't sure what until I found a sketch to follow and decided on some lucky clovers  ( again from memory box)  which again I cut on a scrap of white card and coloured with promarkers .

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

Simon says monday challenge - Home sweet home

Pink Gem - Spring fever

Sketch Saturday - sketch

Crafts and me - anything goes

Unicorn challenge - special occasion

Outside the box - magic markers

I 

Sunny days

I recently got some new chameleon pens so am experimenting with them they are quite fun to play with but I still love my promarkers too and am still getting to grips with my spectrum noir aqua colours. My hubby bought me the chameleons after watching their videos on facebook as he was quite taken with them though hasn't yet asked to play which I really thought he would.

Anyway I to play with some dies I treated myself to and hadn't got around to using so decided to make a tag which I can either use as a tag or I could use as a topper on a card. I used the cloud die and coloured with the chameleons I love how you get so many shades from one pen. I used the tag die to cut the cloud die to fit onto the tag and line up the stitching. 

I used a flower border which I coloured with promarkers taking inspiration from the flowers in my garden. I used a cute bunny to add some fun as I think he might jut fancy nibbling on the sweet flowers.

I love the proper umbrella die which I cut in rainbow card love the graduation variant and added it at an angle after folding on the score lines.

I added the cute sentiment from lily of the valley  and drew in some raindrops to finish.

I love how it turned out.

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

HLS CAS - Rain

As you like it -favourite die

(my newest dies always seem to be my favourites)

If you give a crafter a cookie - April showers bring may flowers

Scrappy Land -anything goes

(Memory box and poppystamps dies)

Craftaholics R us -spring colours

country view -flower power

Make it Monday - May flowers

Is this just fantasy?

When I was a child I always thought I was quite lucky when my birthday came around in some respects as my birthday fell in the summer holiday, I didn't think it fair that my school friends who had birthdays in term time would get cards from everyone in class which as my school friends didn't live anywhere near us and I didn't associate with them out of school I didn't. I played with my neighbourhood friends who all went to different schools which was good and I was one of the oldest so one of the biggest too which meant unlike those school friends who got cards from the class and birthday bumps too, I happily missed out on that treat as my neighbourhood friends were in no position to give them to me.

The little chap on my card seems to be having fun though and I think his birthday bumps must be more like playing on a trampoline than the bumps I remember.I like to think animals have fun and celebrate their birthdays though animals life years are often more numerous than one of our years so they must have more birthdays every year and yes I do often wonder if part of my brain is in a fantasy world or that of a never grown up child but I can live with that too.

I coloured this fun lotv image with my new chameleon pens and my trusted promarkers (still learning to use the chameleons). I then fussy cut the image out. I wanted to add movement to the image  and finally decided I would have a go at making a slider card. I separated the bouncing bear from the image and stuck him onto a 5p piece. I created my base using a piece of white card a little smaller than my base card and I coloured with chalks using a poppystamps cloud die to create a tree line by rubbing chalks up to it. 

I then added a channel by cutting with a craft knife, about the width of the 5p piece and then stuck a penny to the back of the 5p with a foam pad sandwiching the background between them..

I added 3 fling birds die cuts from memory box , I love these and all the other little dies I have they are great for adding interest and details to cards , coloured with promarkers and a nice bold sentiment nothing fancy as I do intend the card being for a child.

I got a bit carried away with the photos as I wanted to show how the baby bear tumbles as he's propelled into the air for his birthday bumps.

I would like to wish LOTV happy birthday as they celebrate their 13th birthday a bit old for bumps but I hope they still have fun celebrating.

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

Crafts galore encore -anything goes

Squirrels  NSR -fantasy

Craft rocket -fantasy

LOTV May challenge -Happy Birthday

Creative craft cottage - 3 of a kind

OLLCB- something begining with B

fab n funky -kids and teens