Easter Egg Delivery

It’s new challenge time over at Crafty Girls!  We are sponsored by A Day For Daisies and Glamoureyes, and there are some great prizes to be snapped up!

I chose Easter Egg Delivery by A Day For Daisies for my card – I loved the idea of a little sprite delivering the eggs, with the help of a kaleidoscope of butterflies!  The layout is based around the current sketch challenge over at Friday Sketch Challenge (flipped sideways):

I deliberately kept the design of the card quite flat as I will probably be posting this card off to my god-daughter in Sheffield, so I’d rather keep the postage down!  The papers are all from the Dovecraft Back To Basics III stack – my favourite for Spring themed cards at the moment!  After colouring the image with Pro-Markers, I softened the edges with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to imitate the sky as a background.  The spots on the Easter Egg were added with a Sakura Jelly Roll pen – unfortunately they didn’t turn out quite as I had hoped, there are too many, too close and the sizes are too uneven! Finally a little touch of Stickles on the wings (although it is impossible to see in the photos!).

Make sure you pop over to the Crafty Girls and have a peek at the projects from my teamies – you won’t be disappointed!

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Friday Sketch Challenge – see sketch above

Sparkles  – Easter Parade

4 Crafty Chicks – Colour A Stamped Image

Creative Moments – Things With Wings

Crafting With Butterflies – Easter

City Crafter – Easter

Crafty Boots – Easter

Paper Makeup Stamps – Pastel Colours

Lexis Creations – Easter

Paper Nest Dolls Norway – Easter

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Grab Your Punches And Dies…

Ready for a new challenge at Crafting From The Heart?  Our new challenge starts today, for one week only….that’s right, today’s the day Crafting From The Heart goes weekly!  The theme this week is Punches Or Dies, so it’s very easy to play along.  We were very fortunate to be sponsored by The Stamping Chef and Lacy Sunshine, so many lovely images to choose from….

But I eventually picked Eleanor Painting Butterflies by Lacy Sunshine, because I’m having withdrawal symptoms from my Martha Stewart punch and figured I could definitely use some 3D butterflies to embellish this card!

I coloured the image with Pro-Markers, sticking to blues and yellows, the perfect Spring/Summer colour combo in my humble opinion!  I’m trying very hard to improve the way I colour hair, and spent ages reading through tutorials.  Unfortunately, I don’t think much of it went in, I’m none too impressed with the way it turned out….back to the tutorials I think!  Once coloured, I added touches of Stickles to the butterflies and paint pots and created a sky with some Tumbled Glass Distress Ink.

The butterflies were punched with the Martha Stewart punch and then glued to make the wings stand out.  The paper I used for the blue and white one was too flimsy really, but it seems to be holding up ok for now.

For the layout, I have based it on the current sketch over at Papertake Weekly (flipped upside down) and hope I haven’t missed the challenge by the time this post goes live – I forgot to work my days out on my fingers, I just got carried away (again!).  Either way, it’s a great sketch to play along with!

The vellum panel is cut from a piece of Papermania Sienna, which I had left over from some wedding invitations I made last year.  The lemon and white paper is from Dovecraft.  The final layer is a piece of linen textured card, which I have lightly rubbed with some Scattered Straw Distress Ink.

I think that’s all….make sure you pop over to Crafting From The Heart to have a look at the great cards my team-mates have prepared for you.  And don’t forget, you only have 1 week to play along, the perfect excuse to grab your crafty bits straight away, I reckon!!

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly – Challenge 87: Sketch (see above)

The Craft Garden – Pastel Colours

Lacy Sunshine – Use Spring Colours

The Squirrel and The Fox – Use Something Spooled

613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes w/ Use Your Stash (all papers are from stash)

HMICR – Spring Colours

ABC-Challenge – G Is For Girls

Fairies Challenge – Spring

Allsorts – Spring Is Coming

Card Makin Mamas – Stack It Up

Jellypark – Things With Wings

Thanks for reading x

Shades Of Grey (….And Black, White And Red!)

Aha!! Thought that might get your attention!!  😉

I’ve got some really exciting news to share…a new collection of adorable images is being released today over at Kitty Bee Designs!!  And to celebrate we’re having a blog hop!  If you’ve been following the hop, you will have arrived here from Theresa’s blog (The Scrapbooking Queen) – if you’ve stumbled upon it by accident, the full list is below.  Now I know you’ll want to make sure you get along to each and every team member’s posts to leave a comment as one lucky person will win a digi of their choice from the new release…. I’ll point you in the right direction in a moment!

There are 12 new digis in the release; my card for this hop features Heart Strings Raccoon – between you and me, I’ll confess that he tugged at my heart strings as soon as I laid eyes on him!!  As I’m sure you’ll know, raccoons are black, grey and white, so I chose to keep to a very monochrome colour scheme for the whole card, just accenting with red hearts!

The image was coloured with Pro-Markers, mainly keping to the Cool Greys.  The hearts were coloured in Carmine, Berry Red and Ruby, with Sakura Jelly Roll for the highlights and Glossy Accents to give them a lovely sheen.  The papers are from the Dovecraft Back To Basics Monochrome stack – I’ve had my eye on this paper stack for a while (along with the ribbons and polka dot buttons!), so I took full advantage of my monochrome plan!

Along the edges of the two banners strips, you can see some silver stitching – after seeing Mirella’s amazing hand stitched borders, I was inspired to give it a go!  In the past, my stitching has always been a bit (read: a lot!) shaky, so this time I pierced the holes in the paper first, to give myself a pattern to follow, and then filled in the stitches with some metallic embroidery thread that I usually use for hanging decorations on my Christmas tree!  Have to admit, I’m pretty pleased with it!  The stitches are relatively straight, neat and even – although I won’t be offering to let anyone look at the reverse side, as it’s a totally different story!

I based this card around the current sketch over at From The Heart Sketches, as it was too sweet a chance to pass up!

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve read enough here! Please don’t forget to leave a comment if you want to be in with a chance to win an adorable new digi! And then carry on your journey, your next stop is Niki – Stampn’HI!  I’ve popped the full list here too, just in case you’ve missed anyone:

Kitty Bee Designs Blog

Shirl – Creations by Shirl

Larissa – Muffins and Lace

Katie – Katie’s Crafts

Leanne – Finding My Groove

Taniaj – ManxMade

Julie – I Made A Card

kel – Scraps & photoGRAFFS

Theresa – The Scrapbooking Queen

Victoria – Very Belle Makes

Niki – Stampn’HI

Zella – Joyful Expressions

Kitty Bee Designs Blog

Hope you love the new collection as much as we do!  Make sure you take a look at all the adorable stamps just waiting for you over at Kitty Bee!

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

From The Heart Stamps – Sketch 51 (see above)

Penny’s Paper Crafty – Spots and Dots

Inky Impressions – Monochrome

I Love Promarkers – Love Is In The Air

Just Hanna Stamps – Hearts

MilkCoffee – Valentines

Cute Card Thursday – Something New (I’ve used a new stamp and tried a new technique: hand stitching)

Fantastic Tuesdays – Sweet or Cute

Craft Your Passion – Spots and Stripes

Digi Galore Stamps – Monochrome

Pile It On – Animal

Challenges and Candies – Monochrome

Bunny Zoe’s Craft – Stitching

Thanks for stopping by x

Fancy Folds Challenge at Crafting From The Heart

Over at Crafting From The Heart, there’s a new challenge starting today! We’d like to see your fancy folds!! So, if you regularly create easel or swing or gatefold cards (to name a few!), or if you’ve never had a go, but fancy trying something new, now’s your chance!! This challenge is sponsored by Papernest Dolls and Doodle Garden, and you could win either $25 to spend in the Papernest Doll’s Store or 3 digis of your choice from Doodle Garden!

Now, I had never tried a swing card before, but with a little hunting around, I found an excellent tutorial, based on a 6″ square card, which is my preferred size. I wish I could say it was really difficult, so tricky….but I can’t!! It really was a piece of cake (oops, no pun intended!).

After cutting the card base, I added two complementing papers; the brown and pick one comes from a Forever Friends paper stack, while the pink one is from the Dovecraft Back To Basics III set. For this challenge, I chose to use Cupcake Ellie by the Papernest Dolls. She was great to colour, with all her spots and stripes – and those delicious cupcakes, obviously!! I coloured her with Pro-Markers, sticking to chocolate and strawberry colours as they are my favourite flavour icings!! Then I blended some pink chalk ink onto the white cardstock and popped her up on 3D foam pads. On the reverse of the image panel, I stamped a cupcake (from Hobbycraft) directly onto cardstock, coloured with Pro-Markers and added Candyfloss and Stardust Stickles. 

Now, if I can manage to break away from my 6″ square card comfort zone, I’m sure you can too!! I’d love to see what you make, please do pop over to Crafting From The Heart to show us….and have a look at the other DT projects too while you’re there!

Also, we’re delighted to announce that Crafting From The Heart will become a weekly challenge from Monday 3rd March!  Pop a note in your diary to join us twice as often!!

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Lexi’s Creations – Fancy Folds

Crafts For Eternity – Fancy Folds

Come and Get It Challenges – Food, Glorious Food

Incy Wincy – Flower Frenzy

Paper Nest Dolls – Anything Goes

Di’s Digi Designs – Spots and Dots

Addicted-To-Stamps – Flowers

YNS – picture inspiration

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading x

 

One Image, Two Cards

I’ve been busy making two very similar, but obviously different, cards today.  Both feature Abi Ballerina from All Dressed Up; Abi is an old favourite of mine – my daughter even had a top with her picture on when she smaller!  I also based both cards around the same sketch from the current challenge over at Sketch Saturday:

For the first card, I coloured Abi in shades of lilac and purple, and gave her brown hair.  There are little touches of sparkly Stickles on tutu and hairband.

I used a patterned cream and lilac paper from the Dovecraft Back to Basics III paper stack, added a little Bazill card circle with daughter welded to the edge and popped it on a final layer of cream card, embossed with the X-Cut quilting folder.  I cut the wording out twice and added the second layer on top, just to create a little more depth.

The final touch was the band of lace across the centre – I have been dying to use some lace on a card, but haven’t yet been brave enough….hope it looks OK!

The second card features little Abi again, this time coloured in light greens, with touches of Stickles on the tutu and hairband.

This is for a little blonde girl, so I changed Abi’s hair to reflect the intended recipient!  The layout is the same as the first card, but as I kept the colours much simpler, choosing to add texture to white cardstock instead, I feel there is a much cleaner look about the card.  Unfortunately, the coloured mat hasn’t come out too well in the photo – in reality, it is Celtic Green by Bazzill, and is a much springier green, which is similar to the colour of the tutu.  The band of ribbon across the centre should look a few shades darker….but again, hasn’t been treated well by the photo, despite my best efforts to digitally redress the colour balance!

Which do you prefer?  For me, it has to be the first one – I prefer Abi with darker hair and I’m so pleased that I finally managed to use some lace 🙂

I’d like to enter these cards into the following challenges:

Sketch Saturday – Challenge 291: see sketch above

Thanks for reading x