Happy 18th Birthday!

by verybellemakes

Today’s card was made for my next door neighbour’s oldest son, who turned 18 at the weekend. I’ve kept the colours simply and masculine and opted to focus on the age, rather than add an image to this card – after all, it is a landmark birthday, so it’s all about the numbers!

adam birthday full

The die cut is by Lori Whitlock in the Silhouette Online store (I also have similar ones by Alaa’K). The side panels were embossed with the Darice Chevrons folder. And, to top it all, I’ve managed to make this card entirely from my leftovers box 🙂

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

Artistic Inspirations – CAS

Crafty Bloggers Network – Die Cuts and Embossing

Whoopsi Daisy – Emboss It!

Stamped Blessings – Chevrons

Robyn’s Fetish Challenge – Square Cards

Crafting Musketeers – Monochrome

While I’m here today, I’d also like to let you know that I’ve (finally) claimed my blog on Bloglovin, and have added a button in the side bar for you to click on if you’d like to join my band of followers! I’ve recently swapped from WordPress Reader to Bloglovin as I was having trouble receiving posts for the blogs I was subscribed to – I’ve found Bloglovin really straight forward to use, both as a follower and blogger; it’s all there waiting for me when I get five minutes peace with a cup of coffee 😉

12Mar2014

Meet Sewing Kit!

by verybellemakes

Today, it’s my turn in the spotlight over at Kitty Bee Designs. This month, I’ve chosen the adorable little “Sewing Kit” to keep me company!!

For a while now, I’ve been running out of places to store spare buttons – I have one boring Tupperware box, but it is bursting at the seams. When I saw this little stamp, I thought it would be the perfect little image to pop on top of a spare button box….

Now, rather than upcycle a box I already had (why chose the simple route?!), I decided to make a box, using a template I had in my Silhouette library. I cut the template from Kraft card, stuck it altogether with Mod Podge and then left it to dry overnight, held into place with some small bulldog clips. In the meantime, I coloured Kit in sepia tones as I thought these would blend well with the Kraft card. A little Tattered Rose Distress Ink was added to reduce the glaring white of the card I had printed the image onto.

The following morning, I stuck the image to the top of the box, and then used a light layer of Mod Podge to seal the image. A little ric rac around the edge of the top, and a little lace around the main pot and it’s ready for my button collection!

Why don’t you head over to Kitty Bee and add “Sewing Kit” to your stamp collection….?

31Jan2014

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

by verybellemakes

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