DV #177 2 Or More Buttons

Our challenge at Dream Valley this week is to use 2 or more buttons in your project. We are sponsored by All Dressed Up and I have used one of their older designs ‘Love to Shop Girl 1’, which I coloured with copics.

I made my tag background by covering a manilla number 8 tag in patterned paper, you can just see it through the next layer. The next layer was made from some tissue type paper that came as a protective layer with some clothes. I do have rice paper, but thought I would try an experiment to see if stuff I would normally discard would work as well! This was the mopping up from another project that consisted of blues and pinks, which I put to one side to possibly use later. This paper seems considerably more fragile and prone to tearing than rice paper does, but once dried it did ‘firm up’ I applied it over my patterned paper layer with pva glue.

After it dried I stencilled the word Perfect and the stars and distressed harlequins with three shades of Pentart glitter pastes. I inked around the edges of my tag with Broken China oxide. The buttons, and ribbon bits that I stapled on, came from my stash, as did the dazzler flower and the thread I used in my buttons.

I fussy cut the image and popped her on with some foam tape.

This is the packing tissue before, and what was left after I took out the piece I used on the tag. As you can see, it’s not as strong and does tear easily, so maybe mop up in layers and let it dry out a little in between.

  

I am entering this into:-

A Inky Mess - #19 Anything Mixed Media Goes
All Dressed Up - #80 Anything Goes
Altered Eclectics - April: Anything Mixed Media Goes
Artistic Inspirations - #198 Anything Goes
Crafting By Designs - Elegant Ladies
Create and Inspire - #73 Anything Goes, Option use stencils
Creative Artiste - #37 Anything Mixed Media Goes
My Creative Scoop Color Inspiration Monthly - Anything Hand Coloured Goes
Naughty or Nice - #50 Use a Past Theme I chose #19 Ribbon
Simon Says Wednesday - Add Some Texture
Stamping Sensations - April: One for the Girls
We Love 2 Create - #7 Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes

CCM #209 Water

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Water. Do please pop by the blog as there are a lovely wide variety of interpretations of the theme by the DT.

I went for an underwater theme for my card. I started with the background to the scene by stamping Whimsical Waves from My Favorite Things in versamark and embossing with White detail powder onto a watercolour card. Then I just liberally applied various colours of Zig Clean Color Brush Pens and a couple of the blues from the Ecoline Watercolour Brush pens and then spritzed with water. I did add some extra colour directly to certain areas after it was dry in order to give some more depth and shade. I then went over the whole background with the clear overlay sparkle pen.

The three main embellishments are all Katy Sue Designs moulds filled with Paper clay and then coloured with Spectrum Sparkle pens. The jellyfish and most of the seaweed are dies from Magnolia and the other dies are from Marianne. The little shells at the bottom, the paper surrounding the scene and sentiments are from Heartfelt Creations’ Under the Sea collection.

A close up of the scene taken with the flash to show all the sparkle that sadly the camera doesn’t pick up properly with no flash:

The scene was intended to look like a Porthole and I even had a large acetate covering for it that came from a pack of giant crumpets!! Waste not, want not. Sadly in the event it was really too deep and would have made it too front heavy for a card. It might have worked on a canvas but I still think it was too deep, so good idea, but practically not suitable. If the crumpet packaging had been used it would have obscured the waist end of the mermaid’s tail, but because I had already stuck the embellishments down before I realised the packaging wouldn’t work now there is a dip showing in the tai.l. It was meant to look like a mermaid swimming past the porthole and all you can see is her tail. I am bemused as to why it’s shaped like it is anyhow I would have thought a flat finished waist area would have been more practical, and if I had realised sooner I would have trimmed it up to fit against the black frame.

You can see what I mean in this pic@

I am entering this into:-

2 Crafty Critters - #13 Anything Goes with a Critter
A Inky Mess - #19 Anything Mixed Media Goes
CCC Digi Creations - #91 Include An Animal
Craftaholics R Us - #14 Birthday Cards
Crafter’s Castle - #4 Anything Goes, Option Dimensional
Creative Artiste - #37 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Fussy and Fancy - #209 Add a Sentiment
Love To Craft - #21 April: Anything Goes
Love to Create - #7 Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes
Naughty or Nice - #50 So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (with a title like that and my project, how could I resist!) July 2014 Mixed Media
Papercraft Business Challenge - #5 Anything Goes, Option Birthday
Sheepski Designs - #13 Animal Magic
Simon Says Wednesday - Birthday
Simply Create Too - #137 Use Diecuts
That’s Crafty - Going Round In Circles
The House That Stamps Built - DCC44 All Creatures Great and Small

 

Delicious Doodles April Guest Spot

I was thrilled to be offered a guest spot on Delicious Doodles for April. Stupidly I didn’t read my email properly and created something that did not have a Delicious Doodles image on it! Annoying, as Teri is a very talented designer and I actually have lots of her images. Anyhow, the challenge is Anything But Square.

My non square card was made for my beautiful Niece Madi’s birthday. I wanted it to be bright and colourful as she had a hard year last year after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Several rounds of chemo, surgery and radio therapy followed, and she was so positive throughout. Anyhow I am waffling now, sorry.

My card base and mats and layers were made with Sue Wilson’s Octagon dies, the layer with the circular holes is from the Classic Adorned Octagons and the base and top layer, and indeed the birthday sentiment layer are all from the Double Stitched Octagons.

The Sunflower diecuts are from Spellbinders Stephanie Low’s Cool Vibes Sunflower collection which are stamps and matching die sets. I was drawn to this set because of the beauty of the flower but also it has a sentiment ‘Radiate Positive Vibes’ because of Madi’s condition. She radiated positive vibes throughout. However, this was for her birthday so I didn’t want to ‘remind’ her of her recent past and stuck with the traditional Happy Birthday sentiment instead.

The feathers are a Spellbinder die from way back, sorry I don’t recall the name.

I coloured the flowers with a combination of Zig Clean Color brush pens and Ecoline watercolour brush pens. I also splashed the background with the pens. The feathers were cut from the Ink Away clean up cloth I used to mop up the spills from the various watercolours and then left to dry on the radiator before cutting out. It gives them a lovely ethereal feel. The final addition is a bunch of Card Candi.

I am entering this into:-

A Gem of a Challenge - #216 Female Birthday with a Sentiment
Always Fun - #52 Happy Birthday
Always Happy Birthday - Birthday
C.R.A.F.T. - #461 Shaped Card, not Rectangular or Square
Di’s Digi Challenge - Spring Flowers
DL. Art Thankful Thursday - #225 Flowers
Seize the Birthday - Birds (Birthday with option of Birds, do feathers count, as without birds there would be no feathers!)
Star Stampz Challenge - Throw on the Flowers
The Sisterhood of Crafters - Spring Flowers
Whoopsi Daisy - Anything Goes with Option of Flowers

DV #176 Dry Embossing

Our challenge at Dream Valley today is Dry Embossing. We are sponsored by Cute As A Button and I have used one of their images to create my card, Ballerina.

I coloured her in with copics, and printed the skirt part of her tutu onto patterned paper from Nitwits and then paper pieced it onto the image. The die cut is from Spellbinders.

The embossed background I have had since forever!!! It’s one of those craft supplies I just had to have, before embossing folders were so prevalent and die cutting machines, and came in a pad from Craftwork Cards. This particular sheet was a full 8” sheet, but the pad also contained embossed card that was precut in various lovely shapes.

I inked over it with Broken China and Shaded Lilac Distress Oxides. The two ribbons came from my stash, as did the gems and glitter enamel dots.

A slightly darker version of the picture. I really need a new camera, or better eyes, because I am struggling to get decent pics at the moment.

I am entering this into:-

Artistic Inspirations - #197 Anything Goes
Craftaholics R Us - #13 Enamel Dots
Crafting With An Attitude - #37 Anything Goes
Crafty Catz - #410 Anything Goes, Twist Use Old Stash
Dare 2B Artzy - April: Pastel Colours
Daring Cardmakers - Do Something Digi
Dies R Us - #94 Anything Goes with Dies
Get Creative - #68 No Patterned Paper
Southern Girls Challenge - Die Cuts
The Paper Shelter - #332 Digital Image

CCM #208 Bunnies, Chicks or Eggs

Our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is basically an Easter challenge entitled, Bunnies, Chicks or Eggs.

I have used an image from Delicious Doodles called Away with the Bunnies. It struck me funny because my family accuse me all the time of being away with the Fairies! So I loved this play on that saying.

I printed it onto watercolour cardstock and coloured the image with Zig Clean Color Brush Pens and a little dabble of Neocolor ii’s for the background.

The image, matting layer and card base were all made with a Crealies double dots XXL die.

The scrolly bits are a Joycraft die, and the Happy Easter comes from Crafter’s Companion Die’sire range. Flowers from my stash, some small diecut butterflies and a bit of glitter on her wings finished it off.

I’m entering this into

Always Fun - #51 Easter
Creative With Stamps - #24 Bunny
Delicious Doodles - March: Hare/Rabbit
Die Cuttin’ Divas - #361 Flowers
Di’s Digi Challenge - Spring Flowers
Fussy and Fancy - #208 Spring Flowers
Make My Monday - #67 Easter Fun
Scrapbook Stamp Society - #137 Easter
Scribbles Design - #63 Bunny Hop
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge  - Floral Frenzy
Whoopsi Daisy - Mar: Anything But a Square

DV #175 Spring colours

Today at Dream Valley we are sponsored by Paper Nest Dolls for our Spring Colours challenge.

I used ‘Will work for Carrots’ as my image, which I coloured with copics.

For the card itself I started with a sheet of Clarity paper from their Brighton Rock pad, which I chose because of the lovely Spring colours, particularly the peachy orange and yellow of the daffodil.

It looked like this:

I chopped it down to 7.5” square, and then cut it into 5 strips of 1.5” wide, and then chopped them down to 1.5” squares, so I had 25 squares, which I laid out like this:

I stuck them down onto a sheet of white paper and trimmed it up and then popped it through the Bigshot with an Embossalicious folder from Crafters companion so it looked like this:

Then I used several different shades of  Pentart Colored Metallic wax paste, picking out the embossed flowers, until it looked like this:

As kyou can see I caught it more heavily than I wanted in some areas but most of those were covered up with the image and sentiment.

This is a slightly darker version of the final card so you can see the dragonflies a little better.

The mats were cut from white card using a spellbinders die, the sentiment comes from Die’sire, the dragonflies are by John Next Door and the flowers were all from my stash.  Unfortunately you cannot see properly in the pic but the dragonflies have all been dusted with glamour dust so they are sparkly!.

I am entering this into:-

A Gem of a Challenge - #215 Easter Time
Animal Friends Challenge - #60 Easter
Bastel Traum - #63 Easter/Spring
Brown Sugar Challenge - #276 Spring or Easter
Crafting With Dragonflies - #100 Easter Cards
Creative Knockouts - #237 Spring Is On The Way
Eclectic Ellapu - March: Spring Is Coming
Fabrika Fantasy - #18 Spring
Hanna & Friends - #292 Easter/Spring
Let’s Craft and Create - #135 Anything Goes Option Easter
Mari Ko Creations - Bunny Hop/Easter
Moving Along With the Times - #67 Easter
My Time to Craft - #366 Easter/spring
Noor Designs - March: Spring
Papercraft Business Challenge #4 March: Anything Goes Option Easter
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Easter Inspired
Sparkles Monthly - #102 Spring Is In The Air
Stempel Magic - #149 Easter
Sweet Stampers - #18 Spring or Easter

CCM #207 Go Green

As it’s St. Patrick’s Day this coming weekend we thought we would celebrate with the traditional St. Pat’s Day colour of green, so our challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers is Go Green.

My card is on an 8” scalloped card base, using just two papers/card. One is a green paper with embossed offwhite dots and the other plain white card. I managed to get all of it out of a 12” sheet of the green paper by gutting the middle of the bottom square layer….. well there isn’t much point in hiding what you can use in the front now is there!

The bottom white layer has been embossed with a Sue Wilson die, Pinpoint Cross Stitch.

The rest of it was cut using a combination of Sue Wilson’s Lavish Accented Octagon and Classic Adorned Octagon dies, which you can cut into the card/paper or cut out with the accompanying plain octagon dies in the sets. I do also have the Double Stitched Octagon dies, but I didn’t want to make an octagon shaped card so just went with the pretty pattern ones instead.  I layered these up with a layer of the white card and then a final layer of the green paper.

The flowers are Heartfelt Creations Striped Sun Kissed Fleur, which I also diecut in the plain white card and inked through with Evergreen Bough Distress Oxide ink, the same ink I used to stamp the striped flowers with before | embossed them with clear powder.

I’ve added a couple of swirls from Crafters Companion, and from Marianne Designs, pearls to the centres of the flowers, and a sentiment from Creative Expressions’ Showered with Love stamp set.

I am entering this into:-

Cards In Envy - Green Things
Careful Heart - #12 Anything Goes, Twist Add Green
Die Cut Divas - Mar: Monochrome
Di’s Digi Challenge - Lot’s Of Green
Die Cuttin’ Divas - #359 Use Green
Dragonfly Journeys - #113 Going Green
Pearly Sparkles - #26 Flowers
Scribbles Design - #62 Go For Green
SheepSki Designs - #12 Flowers
Simply Create Too - #136 Use Green
Star Stampz - Lots of Green