Lovely Leopard.

For the sketch challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches we have the 'brother' to our previous sketch for February.....




See what I mean?
I wanted to do something different and came up with a card suitable for a male relative and so, even though I'm a few months too early, I made it into a Fathers' Day card.

 On this one the golden foil leopard is a little indistinct, so I've added another photo, where you can see him better.  I've added some shading with a Warm Grey Promarker to ground him, as he slinks across the card.
But, the animal print banner is clearer than in the picture below -one day I'll take a good picture first off!

The DP is from K&Co, I have had it a while and I used gold mirri card for the mat. My Dad is going to love this one!

Metallic Mosaic

We have one final challenge for February at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown, chosen by this month's hostess Jacqueline, and she has asked us to use metallic papers. Lucky me, for I have some metallic origami papers, given to me by a Japanese student who was staying with us one time. I also knew straight away what I wanted to do.

I started with a black card base, which I embossed with my Mosaic embossing folder.  I then used the matching punch to punch out the mosaic shapes from different coloured papers, the shiny ones are actually glittery black, which I also used for the mat, but they don't photograph well, I'm afraid.

I heat embossed the sentiment, letter by letter, in gold and finished off each mosaic tile with a tiny matching rhinestone. Quite dramatic, don't you think? The addition of the part 'tile' definitely improved the design. As I've included a sentiment I' m going to enter my card in the challenge at crafty hazelnuts Christmas challenge too, haven't been able to play there for a while.

Hope you have fun with this challenge!

Hurray for Stamp-a-ma-jigs!

Just playing today, and I found one or two challenges to help me. I wanted to try out my new Stamp-a-ma-jig thingy and so stamping was my main focus.  I have used the lovely colour palette from Colour Throwdown , perfect for the masculine card I wanted to make for Less Is More-haven't played over there in a while. Have to say that my Old Olive ink pad is so dried up that I had to use a substitute - I chose River Rock-hope that's OK

I also wanted to use Gorgeous Grunge, I am so mad about this stamp set, love, love , love it! Must admit, I don't often do one layer cards but I am always impressed by them.  looking at the gallery of winners from last week's LIM challenge gave me the idea.  Enough chat, here's my card

As you can see I've used the tie image from Best Dad Ever (the sentiment is from that set too), although I masked off two of the ties, 5 was way too many, and Off The Grid as a background.  One tiny rhinestone tie pin keeps it LIM.  For me technically, I am very pleased with the positioning and masking -it's good to develop new skills.

Oriental Inspiration

I just picked up a copy of my regular crafting magazine and this month the free gift is a set of acrylic stamps all inspired by the Orient. I have combined a few of them in my card for CAS Colours and Sketches this week. The stating point is a colour challenge and we have these three delicious colours to play with


You don't have to use the exact Stampin' Up colours, just the nearest you have. I used Mimento London Fog for the grey.

The background is made using an acrylic block printing technique, and I wasn't brave enough to do it one-layer, but I do think that would look great! The cherry blossom and storks symbolise happiness I think, so the Chinese characters beneath are perfect. Really happy with the simplicity of this design, would look great in blue too-like the Willow pattern china!

No time like the present...

At The Male Room this morning there is a new challenge for male cards and it is for a retirement card.
I'll admit I found this a bit problematic as I think humorous cards are perfect for this occasion and I didn't think of anything to fit the bill. But, at my monthly craft club our leader, Jo, had this amazing sentiment stamp which I thought would be OK and my card is based on that

It has a kind of vintage feel, without the 'frilly bits' , the clock faces were embossed in white onto the DP, the spots were stamped onto a sponged background and the squares are actually brads (do you think they look like cufflinks too?)

Swinging Deer

I hope on this soggy Saturday morning that the weather is being kinder to you, wherever you are! At least we can snuggle in the warm and dry and craft! Of course, at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown we have another Christmas challenge for you and this week we have a theme

First off, I'm not the best with scenes, so I've only used a small panel, and the theme is quite simple, but that's OK. I have however made a swinging panel card, courtesy of a tutorial from my crafty friend Jacqueline, so I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

I used my Aspen tree stencil to create the tree scene and added two die cut deer in the deep red colour to match the coordinating papers . The circular panel twists around when you open the card to reveal the sentiment, heat embossed in gold and from Delightful Dozen. I used punched out holly leaves to cover the cut edge.

Over at the blog the DT have been amazingly creative with the theme of Christmas landscapes, do have a look at their fabulous work and I look forward to seeing yours!

Snowdrops in a jar

It's sketch week at CAS Colours and Sketches and our hostess this month, Patricia, has designed this awesome sketch - love that any non-rectangular shape -gives loads of possibilities



I must explain that I have moved the shape-hope that's OK. My shape has moved into the triangular bit, oh, and I've moved that around too, by switching the sides. Better just shut up and show you!

I was going to put the jar of snowdrops in the centre, but after playing with the design felt it looked better this way.  I do hope Patricia can still see the sketch well enough. Do you see the sparkle on the flowers?  It's my newest stash addition-Dazzling Details.  The snowdrop is a magazine freebie and I'm just so sick of all the bad weather I wanted to make a card inspired by Spring, so it was a perfect choice. The polka dot ribbon is olive green and matches much better in RL. The jar is stamped on acetate.

UPDATE- after looking at my fellow DT cards I had a brain wave and tweaked my card, what do you think? The colours are truer on this pic too, don't know why I didn't think of adding the sentiment before, it's from Happiest Birthday Wishes, in case you were wondering.

Golden &

Time for a new challenge at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown and this week it's a colour challenge.  We want you to use at least three of the following

I've used the red, green blue and gold and a freebie snowflake stamp with the Love and Joy stamp from Stampin' Up and the background was stamped, before I added the gold heat embossed sentiment. I had to wait a while to ensure that the embossing powder only stuck to the letters. I've added a ribbon as you can see and some Dazzling Details (which you probably can't see, but which gives a lovely glittery finish to the snowflakes.

I also used the cue word from Casology as my starting point, the word this week is 'and'  which sent me reaching for this stamp.

Fine Feathers in White

Hello Crafters.  Happy Thursday to you all.  My card today is for the colour challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches


Love these three together, doesn't have to be exact Stampin' Up shades either. I found three littlepearl brads, and with the magic of markers made them into the right colours! I've been wanting to use these lovely feather stamps for a while but it wasn't until a class on white heat embossing at my local craft club last week, that I think I've finally made a card that does them justice!

I masked off an area on some white card, added the green and blue with my brushes and then used the stamps with Versamark and white embossing powder. On removing the mask there was a tiny bit of 'bleeding' of the colours, but I'm happy with that - adds to the 'arty' feel of the card.  The bird was stamped in Chocolate Chip and fussy cut out, but I stamped the sentiment direct onto the card. Been feeling a bit under the weather myself lately, don't know if that's what prompted me to make a get well card. I think I will enter it in the Anything Goes challenge this week at Addicted To Stamps and More,

Fruity Be My Valentine

Second Valentine card of the week and it's still over a week to go to Valentines' Day! This time though the challenge was to make a Valentines card for a man, for the challenge over at The Male Room So, I cheated a bit and asked my other half what he thought would be good, only one thing came out of our discussion, for him, ribbons/bows are a no-no on a mans card. So, left more or less to my own devices, here's what I came up with

I used a stamp set called fruit and flowers, and it was only after stamping and masking that I realised that I had two of each- then I made the sentiment on my computer. The circles are actually apertures and the DP has a textured surface, which doesn't show up so well, but complements the Naturals White card I used for the images (the card base is actually Kraft).  I found two sparkly hearts lurking at the bottom of my ebellies box and added them and the other sentiment is from Delightful Dozen.
I think my husband will like this one, we'll see ;)

Raspberry Ripple Heart

February began last Saturday and today is the first Tuesday in that month and so that means there is a brand new challenge at Technique Time Tuesday and it is so much fun! I had really never tried this before, but the results are awesome-it's like magic! If you hop on over to the blog there is a full description/video of the technique - Shaving Foam Printing - you use it to create background for your projects, and whilst playing I made a few more backgrounds I'll definitely be using in the future.
Here's my card, inspired by February being the month for love!

Once I'd created the background the rest was simple, a computer generated sentiment, a key charm, three rhinestones and a ribbon, it's made.  I absolutely love it! It took a few tries to get the heart as I wanted, and I used two shades of pink ink. My foam cost 26p from the supermarket, and inks are fairly inexpensive too (especially if you did what I did and got together with a friend to share) so this technique won't cost a lot either.  I am going to enter my card in a few  other challenges too, I've used most of the colour palette from ColourQ and the theme for this month at The Cupboard Trilogy Challenge is love, along with Addicted To CAS

Study in Red and Gold

The first Saturday in February and we have a new hostess over at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown, one of our founders-Jacqueline. As usual, Jacqueline kicks off with a sketch for you to play with

I chose a large circle (seem to have a thing for circles right now) and I've chosen to make it really large, to fill my card, as I wanted to use the wreath stamp I had for Christmas again.

 Believe me, this card is much more attractive in RL.  The wreath is simply embossed in gold, tried paper piecing small red berries, but that looked rubbish, so went for gems instead.  I used gold mirri card for the matt and red glitter card for the panels, they are straight but don't look it here.  The sentiment is a peel-off.  As I used a red card stock for my card blank I have put a liner inside. I will be using this one for someone special I think, with all that bling!