Bird on a Board

Sorry, I'm a bit late writing the post for the challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches, which went live yesterday. I was in London, watching an amazing performance of Titus Andonicus, at The Globe Theatre and clean forgot to post my card! No worries, it's here now...

This week it is what we call 'The Double'- the challenge is to use both the sketch and the colours. Here they are

With Real Red, burnt Brown Sugar and Coastal Cabana.

I have followed the sketch to the letter but feel free to interpret it however you wish, as long as we 

can still see the basic layout it's fine with us. Here is a close up of the little bird, using the Bird Punch, another oldie but a real classic, which always feels fresh on any card, if you know what I mean.  

And inside I stamped a matching image, colouring it partially with my markers

It's holiday week here for us so a visit to the theatre is only one of the things I managed to cram into the week. We went to the cinema to see X-Men, hubby and I will enjoy a night away in a fab little place called Ludlow, not so far from where we live ( a Valentines gift which we finally got around to using) and we started the week off visiting family in Holland. Not much time left for crafting, boo hoo!

Oak Tree Reflections

Good morning! There is a new challenge at The Male Room this morning. Over there we are looking for your craft projects for the men in your lives and this time the theme is Leaves and Trees.
I reached for an old favourite stamp set, as I'm sure many more of you will too, Lovely As A Tree and created this card

I used the new hardwood background stamp, which I finally got around to ordering, some twine and the tab is a punch. I used the reelection technique for the grand old oak tree, sponging in the sky and 

water. I've added just a touch of dazzling detail to get some reflective quality into the water. Last bit of detail is t he oak leaf, stamped in Gumball Green and fussy cut to add to the frame. Could be a Fathers Day card or a family birthday card,either fits the simple sentiment.

Frosty Seed Head

It's time for another Christmas card challenge from 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown and we have something a little different from our lovely and very creative hostess Ruth.

I've chosen an unusual subject for my card but I think that the glittery, frost quality makes it suitable for a Christmas card (I must tell you that my husband disagrees but we will let you be the judge)

The old is my old, well used white embossing powder, the jar is nearly empty, the new is a previously uninked stamp, the borrowed is the sentiment, and the blue....well, you get the idea. I've used Dazzling details on the image, here's a close up...

Still difficult to see the sparkle, but it is there in real life. I really like this card, and would be very happy to receive it at Christmas time. Do hop on over to the blog to see the work of my fellow DT and then get creative with at least two of the elements, can you do all four?

Pretty Things

I have two cards to share this morning. The first one is for the colour challenge at The Colourthrowdown

At the moment screen cards seem to be all the rage and so I thought I'd have a go at making one. I used a punch to cut out the 'legs' and a border punch to make the lacey top. Then it was just a case of stamping and fussy cutting out various flower images. I have sponged the edges and added a few gems and a sentiment from a very old SU set, don't even know it's name! I am also entering the Anything Goes challenge at Addicted To Stamps and More with my sceen card.Here it is....

 

 

My second card is for today's new challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. This week it is the turn of the sketch,

 

 

I must admit I was a bit rushed and so this card is based on a card I posted a couple of weeks ago

 

 

I used the splat from Gorgeous Grunge instead of the hexagons, added a brad and the sentiment banner was made using a corner punch (Martha Stewart) and the sentiment from Simply Sketched. The die cut butterfly was a magazine freebie and this time, instead of leaving it white I have added random splatters from the larger grunge stamp.. Here's a close up

 

 

Two very feminine cards from me, hence the blog title, makes a change!

 



A Happy Little Christmas Tree

At 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown we have a recipe challenge this week. This is my card

...and this is the recipe I followed

With a little help from the sketch at Completely Christmas

My card features  coloured in peel off stickers, with rhinestone baubles, twine and the debossed background ( I think this is the debossed side, I chose the stars as the main feature and so have ensured they are debossed) The sentiment is a little 'tile' I made by stamping on to mountboard, sponging on the colour and adding several layers of UTEE. I avoid colouring images like the plague as I think/know I'm not very good at it, but thanks to Ruth I've been pushed out of my comfort zone and TBH I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

Wetland in Blue

This week we have a colour challenge for you at CAS Colours and Sketches.

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With these three colours I decided to challenge myself and use a stamp set I wouldn't normally choose to use with them. It turned out quite a masculine card, but that seems to be happening a lot lately! The Primrose Petals always comes out a little darker for me too, on the schematic it looks quite pink, dusky pink maybe, but I find it comes out differently when I stamp with it- not complaining, just saying.

I used the grey ink to make an acrylic block print and stamped the birds on top. I used Midnight Muse card stock and the sentiment is from Wetlands too with an extra bird - easy to do when stamping with markers.

Up up and Away

There's a new challenge this morning over at The Male Room, the challenge blog for all masculine projects for the men and boys in our lives. This time we are asking you to create a card (or other project) with a moving part.
Here's mine

 When I imagined doing this project I thought that the moving part would be some clever fold, but in the end I've just gone with a free hanging basket on my balloon- well, it does move! The little house scene is a TH die cut and I put coloured card behind the windows. The sky is lightly embossed with my SU cloud folder and I made the balloon freehand, cutting the shape out of several DPs and card stock and layering them together. I laced the basket to the balloon with twine and have tied on a small key, which adds weight and keeps the basket swinging below the balloon. Finally, I used a die cut shape and a sentiment from Happiest Birthday Wishes. It folds flat(ish) to fit in the envelope.

Contemporary Wreath

Back again with another Christmas card for 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown and it's week two of the month and so it must be a colour challenge

  These vibrant colours, to me, just demanded a thoroughly modern take on Christmas and so my card features a very stylised wreath, made from different sized circles punched out from all five of the featured colours...

The bow is tied using the fork method and the sentiment, from Contempo Christmas (apt, eh?) is stamped in Perfect Plum onto a die cut, which I think is Apothecary Art, but which may be called something different- I don't own it I just borrowed it! I finished off with a few gems to jazz it up. You don't have to use all 5 colours, just a minimum of three.
I'm going to enter the challenge at Completely Christmas again this week, where Anything Goes and atCrafty Hazel nuts Christmas Challenge where the theme is Let it Shine ( my gems on the wreath) and Crafty Hazelnuts Extra Christmas Challenge, where anything goes as long as it's Christmas.
UPDATE - My card won at Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas challenge, thank you, Hazel.

Cherry blossom wishes

Had a bit of an 'inky' day today with my card for the colour challenge at ColourQ. I noticed the cherry blossom in the orchards as I drove to work earlier this week and thought that these colours were perfect

The technique I've used is supposed to imitate bokeh ,the diffusion of light into orbs when taking a
photograph, and is very simple.

First I stamped and heat embossed the cherry tree branch and then masked off the centre of the card. I sponged the two pinks and Pear Pizazz and then added drops of water to create  the bokeh . These take time to develop and it's quite fun to watch! Finally I stamped on the greeting. I made a one layer version of this card, but then remembered the fourth colour, so this version is matted onto sage coloured card.
With the card neatly divided into thirds I am going to enter the challenge at CAS-ual Fridays, just noticed the sentiment is three words too, there's a coincidence!

I was so pleased with this card that I had another go, this time a more somber colour scheme for a sympathy card I needed.

This time I've used a Woodware stamp image, heat embossed and I've used two shades of blue and 

Perfect Plum.  The darker spots are added with the rubber on the end of a pencil, using the 

Pacific Point blue. This time the mat is black, I'm going to enter this in the challenge at LessIsMore, where they want cards with three colours.

White Hearts

We have a brand new challenge this morning from Lizy over at the CAS Colours and Sketches challenge blog. It is of course a sketch

 

You are free to interpret the sketch however you like but I've kept pretty much to the above, except that I have used a square base.

My card began as I was thinking about a design brief for another challenge where I'm on the DT, do you know the saying for a wedding "something old, something new....." not revealing any more but this card comes from that. The stamps are borrowed from a lucky friend who went to the SU convention and got the set Language Of Love from there. One has never been inked up before (that's the "new" part) and the old is my old favourite Gorgeous Grunge (of course, what else!) I heat embossed the images in white, here's a close up..

 Really, really happy with how this turned out and lucky that I went crafting at a friend's since I don't have any heart images or dies. Just noticed, doesn't it remind you of Wedgewood china in those colours?

Bluebells on The Malverns

This morning I have a card inspired by the challenge at Make My Monday and a photo posted by a friend on Facebook. Where I am lucky enough to live there are millions of bluebells, flowering right now, carpeting everywhere in blue, have a look 

The challenge is for seasonal flower colours, I have used three shades of blue, two shades of green and yellow

I used the acetate block print technique to make my grassy background. I added Lovely as a Tree, stamped twice and some 'sprinkles' from Create A Cupcake to add the flowers in the distance. The 

sky is sponged and the flower heads punched out, curled and a tiny yellow centre added, the greeting is also from the cupcake set.

Yellowstone Christmas

 It's the first Saturday of the month and whilst you may not be thinking of Christmas right now here at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown we continue to create Christmas cards every week in an attempt to get ahead with the demand for holidays. We have a new hostess and this month it is the turn of our very own, lovely Ruth fromFlowersparkle. She's devised this rather good sketch..

  Feel free to interpret the sketch however you like, as long as we can still basically see the elements we're happy.

My card started with the least significant items- the three little elk brads. I bought these in a little craft store I discovered whilst on holiday in Estes Park, Colorado(?) last year. The stamp image is also from my travels, as I bought him in the Yellowstone Park gift store. He is actually in front of some trees, from Lovely As A Tree,stamped in Baja Breeze, but it doesn't show up well in the picture. The sentiment is a magazine freebie and the DP is from SU's Sweater Weather range. This is kind of a masculine Christmas card, I think, I will have to think of who to send it to ;)

Welsh Poppies

Happy May 1st! Has the sunny weather arrived at last?  I hope so, it seems to have been a long winter to me. My card this morning is definitely not wintery, we have a new hostess this month at CAS Colours and Sketches, it's Lizy, from Lizy's House of Cards and she's starting off with a gorgeous colour scheme of Daffodil delight, Pacific Point and Smoky Slate.
Here's the card I made

I stamped the text, which is a Waltzing Mouse stamp set I was very lucky to have won a couple of years ago, in Pacific Point, adding the flower, from Simply Sketched on top. The ever useful Gorgeous Grunge adds a splash of colour and I've used the Smoky Slate as a mat. Here's a close up of the flower

Another way to use Grunge, I'm so addicted to this stamp set, it's so useful! Yellow poppies are called Welsh poppies around where I live, hence the title of the post, but I'm not sure if that's their true name.
Hope you have fun with this colour combo too.  Looking forward to visiting some blogs!