DV #161 Christmas Animals

It’s really chilly today, considering it’s Summer, so it’s appropriate that our challenge at Dream Valley is Christmas Animals.

We are sponsored by both Crafty Ribbons and also Di’s Digi Stamps.

My image came free with a magazine and is by Adam Pescott, at least I think it is. I coloured it with copics. The turquoise mirri was in my stash as was the snowy background papers which I have been trying to use up for years! The tree diecuts are Doohickey dies from Magnolia.

No idea where the sentiment die comes from, nor the snowflakes. as I put them down after cutting and they upped and disappeared!.

I am entering this into:-

Christmas Card Challenges - CCC #19 Optional Blue and White Snowflakes
Craft Rocket Challenges - #40 Animal Kingdom
Crafty Hazelnut’s Christmas Challenge - #346 Anything Goes
Crafty Hazlenut’s Christmas Challenge Extra - Aug: Anything Goes
Crazy 4 Challenges - #398 Monochromatic
Dragonfly Dreams - Animals
Happy Little Stampers Christmas Challenge - Aug: Anything Goes
Jingle Bells - Peace on Earth
Sparkles Forum Christmas Challenge - #79 A Festive Sentiment
Sweet Stampin’ Chrismtas - Aug: Anything Goes
The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge - #12 Anything Christmas Goes
The Merry Christmas Challenge - #29 Anything Christmas Goes

CCM #193 Lots of Layers

Our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers this week is Lots of Layers. Please bob by the blog to check out the fabulous designs by the team.

My card was made for my Niece who is currently in the middle of chemo for breast cancer. She had an enforced spell in hospital because of cellulitis and neutropeania brought on by the chemo. Before that she was very positive and I wanted to remind her of her positivity, and also to give her some lovely bright colours.

My layers are two different mats, one dark purple matt card and the other purple mirri, and of course the flowers which I layered over the ones I stamped flat on the background. The background was made with distress oxide inks. I discovered that if you put your inks on a craft mat and spritz them with water first and then pick them up onto your card and let it dry it is next to impossible to remove the colour later, which is possible if you apply the ink direct to your card/paper! The white spots are because I dripped water onto the background before it dried, but when I tried later to ‘bleach out’ the colour from the flowers so that I could colour them in it wouldn’t shift! I stamped them all again and watercoloured them in with Koh-i-Noor watercolours. The flowers and sentiments are from JOFY’s most recent design as are the birds, but from a much earlier set. The insects come from an impression obsession set with matching dies. I added some glitter highlights too.

The sentiment was perfect for what I wanted the card to say.

I am entering this into:-

Alphabet Challenge - I for Insects
Artistic Inspirations - #183 Use Summer Colours
Cardz 4 Galz - #51 Butterflies
Craftaholics R Us - #27 Summer
Craftliners - #40 Many flowers
Crafty Friends Challenge - #62 Floral
Daisy Chain Challenges - #10 Floral
Dare 2B Artzy - July: Bright Colours
Eclectic Ellapu - July: Summer Colours
My Creative Scoop Colour Inspiration Monday - #24 Anything Hand coloured
Sheep Ski Designs - #4 Square Cardz
Scrap & Craft Inspiration Challenge - #5 Summertime with Butterflies
Stamping Sensations - July: Anything With Flowers
Stempgarten - #63 Anything That Can Fly
Stinkin’ Inkers - summer Heat

CCM #192, Tic, Tac, Toe

You wouldn’t believe the week I have had. On Tuesday my Daughter put herself in hospital as an ambulance emergency because she took an out of date antibiotic for a chest infection she was suffering with rather than visit the GP! Within minutes of swallowing it she was convulsing in pain, her whole body was swelling, she was having difficulty breathing and her head was spinning. Fortunately she realised it was a mistake and immediately dialled 999, and luckily the emergency services were there within 5 minutes, administering steroids and morphine. Several hours later, very red faced she was allowed home. She assures me she will never try that again! Scared the pants off  of me and her husband though. Who knew old out of date medication could be so dangerous!

Fast forward to yesterday. I can no longer walk any distance so my poor dog only get as much exercise as she can get on the park fetching a launched ball or down the ford swimming. I take her everywhere on my mobility scooter. We were bombing down the road to my Sister’s when suddenly she just shot off the scooter. I immediately stopped, terrified of what I would find, but luckily she was unhurt. I had forgotten to clip her to a safety harness. Thank goodness there was nothing behind me because she would have been run over for sure.

So that’s the two most important people (things ) in my life both put in danger through stupidity! Here’s hoping this week will not be fraught with danger.

Anyhow enough of my waffling, and on with today’s Crafty Cardmakers challenge which is a Tic, Tac, Toe one, following this grid

I have chosen top left to bottom right, Gems or Pearls, Stamp or Digi and Die Cuts. Apologies for the poor quality of the image. I had posted it before I realised just how poor it was and it was too late to re-photograph it.

My image is a Sarah Kay one, they are no longer made, sadly, because the quality was excellent. I coloured it with polychromos pencils, and added glitter highlights to the hat and dress. The Die cuts are from Magnolia’s Doo Hickey Range and also the Polynesian Sails Oval from Cheery Lynn Designs.  My papers are from Die Cuts with a View and that includes the scalloped background. The Happy Birthday die is from Britannia.

I am entering this into:-

A Bit More Time to Craft - #47 Anything Goes
A Perfect Time to Craft - July: Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar - July: Anything Goes
Dragonfly Dreams - July: Anything Goes
Incy Wincy Designs - Friends Forever
Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends - #61 Anything Goes
Love to Craft - # 12 Anything Goes
Paru’s Card Making Challenges - July: Birthday
Sheep Ski Designs - #4 Square Cardz
Stempelsonne - #191 Anything Goes

DV 159 Ribbon, Lace and Bling

Our challenge today at Dream Valley, sponsored by Beccy’s Place, is Ribbon, Lace and Bling. I used a lovely free image from Beccy to make my card.

I printed it up and then coloured in the flower on it to match the ribbon and mirri card I used for the back mat. I embossed a piece of white card with a paisley embossing folder and matted that onto the mirri. The ribbon, lace, lace motif and fabulous pearl floral piece are all from my stash.

I am entering this into:-

A Bit More Time to Craft - #46 Anything Goes
Crafting With Dragonflies - #83 Sentiment Main Focus
Creative Craft Cottage - #90 No Patterned Paper
Creative Ladybirds Creations - #27 Anything Goes
Daisy Chain Challenges - #9 Monochrome
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends - #60 Anything Goes
Monochrome Magic - #2 Anything Monochrome Goes
Scrap N’ challenge - June: Happy Birthday
Scrap & Craft Inspiration - #4 Anything Goes plus Ribbon
Sparkles - #93 Embossing Heat or Dry
Sunny Day Crafting - June: Tic, Tac, Toe Diagonal- Sentiment, Digi, Embossing

CCM #191 Here Comes Summer

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is 'Here Comes Summer’ although I am currently sitting in roasting hot temperatures and kind of wishing it wasn’t. The trouble with the UK over the last few years is that the weather is very bi-polar and it never seems to sit at one temperature long enough to acclimatise, so that when a burst of Summer happens, we can’t handle it!

Nothing says Summer to me quite like the heady scent of beautiful Summer flowers, and the buzzing of bees and flitting of insects.

Anyhow enough of my waffling.

My card was made completely from scratch. The background is Distress Oxides, which I splashed some water onto to create the larger white patches. The more I used these Oxides the more I like them and hope Tim Holtz releases more colours soon! All the small white accents are a Signo white pen.

I then stamped various Paper Artsy Kay Carley stamps to form a sort of summer garden scene. These were coloured in with Koh-i-noor watercolour pencils.

The camera hasn’t picked it up but all the butterflies and dragonflies are coloured with Gansai Tambii starry colours, which have a lovely soft shimmer. I had to stamp the bees, because in my effort to give the edge of the card a nice black outline I slipped with my promarker and ran right across the butterfly I had stamped in the middle of the right hand side of the card. For once I couldn’t stick a butterfly on it as the black line ran right through it and out the other side! I stamped a smaller flower head and coloured that in and then put the bee on the top to cover up the fact that the centre of the flower was a butterfly!

I am entering this into:-

Addicted to Stamps - #150 Flowers
Artistic Stamper - June: Winged Things
Crafting By Designs - Things With Wings
Crea Chickys - #11 Flowers
Dare 2B Artzy - June: Summer
Di’s Digi Designs - Summer Days
Do-1(1) Creative - #6 Early Summer
Hanna And Friends - #275 Summer
Heartful Stamping - Monthly - Welcome Summer
Mod Squad - Make It Square
My Time to Craft - #348 Summertime
Noor Design - June: Summer
Paradise of Stamps - #57 Summer
Pink and Main - #22 Summer

DV #158 Square Cards

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is a lovely easy one, at least for me because it’s my favourite shape, square cards.

We are sponsored by Star Stampz, and the team had a couple of lovely images to work with. I chose Sunshine.

I printed her onto Mixed Media card. Similar to watercolour card but not quite as thick. I then coloured her with the ‘extra colours’ from the Caran D’Ache Neocolor ii Watercolours range. They originally made a tin of 126 but discontinued them and now only make 84 as the largest tin. As I couldn’t get the tin I wanted the ‘extra’ 42 colours to complete my large tin. I finally tracked most of them down and used just those to make this card.

I also stamped MFT’s Modern Mosaic Background stamp onto the same cardstock and embossed it. I watercoloured it with the same colours I used in the image. I matted it and the image onto black cardstock. The birthday sentiment I die cut twice, the top layer from the Mixed Media card and coloured randomly with the same range of colours. I also went over the sentiment with a clear glitter pen, and matted it slightly off centre onto a black die cut.

The little circles are glitter enamel dots I got from China!

I am entering this into:-

Allsorts - #419 Use At Least 2 Dies
Brown Sugar - #254 Anything Goes
CAS Watercolour - June: Summer
Challenge up Your Life - #69 Mosaic
Classic Design Team - #15 Anything Goes
Colour Crazy - Week 23 Anything Goes
Crafty Gals - #126 Emboss It
Di’s Digi Designs - Birthdays
Hannah and Friends - #275 Summer
Let’s Craft and Create - #126 Girls, Girls, Girls
Moving Along With The Times - #47 Embossing
Paradise of Stamps - #57 Summer
Sunny Day Crafting - June: Tic, Tac, Toe Diagonal Top left-bottom right
The Corrosive Challenge - #6 Anything Goes

DV #157 More Than One Fold

Our challenge for the next two weeks at Dream Valley is to create a card with more than one fold. We are sponsored both by All Dressed Up and by Oddball Art and we were lucky enough to get to choose an image from their fabulous ranges to play with. I went with Oddball Art and chose Sally and Charlie.

As you can see from my card below I saw this image and thought of the sea…. It wasn’t until I was colouring it I realised she was a fairy and Charlie had wings…. but ho hum. I like to think of it as fancy dress and a funky rubber swimming ring! At least that’s my excuse, lol

For my ‘more than one fold’ I started with a Spellbinders die that cuts a step card and cut the base from centura pearl. It’s a fabulous die and comes with all the toppers but I only wanted it for the base card and matting layer.

Next I stamped the background with MFT’s background stamp Whimsical Waves, with versamark and embossed it with white embossing powder. I then watercoloured it with the Prima Confections, Pastel Dream, selection, in various shades of green/blue.

I then cut them out with the layering die and matted them onto the base. Next I started on my image, and it was at this point I thought, heck that’s a fairy and a dragon! But hey ho I was committed now…. I coloured Sally with my copics and fussy cut her out.

The Turtle die I think is Memory Box, but I am not 100% sure. The other diecuts are from Marianne and come on one strip. I cut those out a couple of times.

I coloured them with copics and stuck them all down with foam pads. I finally added some bubbles with a cute little bubble stamp that comes on a mermaid set from Hunkydory. My favourite diecuts are those doody little Angel Fish and the Seahorses.

I am entering this into:-

Addicted To Stamps - #149 Animals
Addicted To Stamps and More - #243 Holiday
Chocolate Baroque - #35 Colour Challenge
Come and Get It - Nautical
Crafting From the Heart - #161 Anything Goes
Crafting With Dragonflies - #81 Animals
Crafty Friends - #58 Summer Colours
Crazy 4 Challenges - #387 Summer Destination
Cut It Up #122 Fun Folds
Hiding In My Craftroom - #302 Any Holiday (Summer)
Kitty Bee Aloha Friday - #95 Animals
My Creative Scoop - Color Inspiration Monthly #22
Pile It On - #130 Animal
Send a Smile 4 Kids - Bright Colours
Simply Create Too - #127 Must Use A Digi Stamp
Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - #85 B is for Beach