Bling, Bling!

It’s time for a new challenge at Sentimental Sundays!  The theme this week is sure to catch your eye – we’re asking you to Bling It Up!  We have a fabulous new sponsor for this challenge too, Ppinkydolls!

I haven’t used one of the Ppinkydolls images before, but I am really pleased with the end result!  Although I’m not 100% happy with the way the butterfly wings came out, I was so pleased with the skin and hair that there was no way I was starting again!!  Hubby even asked if it was a pre-coloured image, so it can’t be that bad!!

The image was coloured with ProMarkers and mounted on an easel card.  To bling it up, I coated the butterfly’s wings in Wink of Stella and a little Stickles.  I also added some Liquid Pearls to the middles of the scallops and to the detail of the butterfly’s wings.  The stopper for the easel card is an old button, dipped in blue micro glitter; it really sparkles!!

Head over to Sentimental Sundays to take a peek at the other DT projects!  And why not show us how you’ve blinged up a card or two this week – just don’t forget the sentiment!

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

That’s Crafty – Keep It Simple

613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes

Glitter n Sparkle – Things Beginning With B – Butterfly

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New Challenge At Crafting At The Weekend

Well, that month flew by!!  Hard to believe that we were getting ready for a bank holiday weekend last time I posted for Crafting At The Weekend!  Today, the summer is definitely fading fast, the mornings are crisper and the evenings are starting to get dark much earlier.  And, as of this week, I’m home alone all day, now that my youngest is in school full time!  Why is it then, that I have less time to get inky, rather than more?!!

Anyway, on to this month’s card, which I only just about finished in time!!

I forced myself to raid my stash for this card!  And then I went a step further and made myself open the gorgeous set of Tiddly Inks stamps that came free with Quick Cards magazine during the summer 🙂

This is just one of the adorable little images; I have coloured Wryn with ProMarkers and some Stickles for the fluffy edging of her hat and dress.  All the papers are from my stash, the spotty one is from the Papermania Spots and Stripes collection, but I’m not sure about the others!

The sentiment is a clear stamp I picked up from one of the bargain bins in Hobbycraft!  I think I’ve had it lurking, unopened, for around 18 months……shame on me!!  It’s held in place by a plait of jute threads – I had great ideas for this piece of jute, but now I finally have a piece, I’m struggling to use it on my cards!!  So I figured that introducing it a little at a time might help me overcome my block 🙂

Right, all that’s left for me to do is remind you that the Crafting At The Weekend challenge will be running for a month, the theme is Anything Goes and we have some great prizes from Ditzie Crafts and Aurella 27 up for grabs!!

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

Spooky Polkadoodles!

It’s time for my next Polkadoodles post!  This time, I’d like to introduce you to a blood-thirsty little chap!!  This is Dracula; he’s available for you to download immediately in the Polkadoodles store.

For my project this week, I have made a gift bag – I thought that might come in more handy than a card!  I have coloured Dracula using ProMarkers as usual, although I haven’t actually used any black – I stuck to the Cool Greys to make up the shading as I find I prefer the results this way!  For the red areas, I have used Lipstick Red, Berry Red and Crimson, with a touch of Cool Grey 4 in the areas I wanted to darken a little more.

The creepy tree is one of the fabulous pre-coloured images that you can also get from Polkadoodles – I have simply opened in Silhouette, resized it, then print and cut the image.  The sentiment is also a pre-coloured item – it was orginally part of a journal page, which I have cut out using the Silhouette software, and then used the print and cut function again.  These are just two of the gorgeous images included in the Witchie Witchie download bundle!!

The cobwebs are my own handiwork….just a little doodling fun!

Head over to the Polkadoodles blog for some more Halloween inspiration!

 

New Challenge At Crafting From The Heart

Time for a new challenge over at Crafting From The Heart!  We are lucky to be sponsored by The Doodle Garden and Bugaboo this week and, as always, it’s Anything Goes!  Sadly, The Doodle Garden closed last month, but you can still win the lovely images we used for our DT makes!

I used Flight Lesson for my card – it’s such a sweet little image!  I coloured it with ProMarkers with a very slight touch of Wink Of Stella on the wings and hairclip.  I made the background with some Distress Inks and a water spritzer – I was a little heavy handed with the DI, so I needed the water to lighten things up a bit!

Don’t forget to head over to Crafting From The Heart to have a peek at the other DT makes.

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

My First Post For Polkadoodles!

Remember my sneaky peek for a week or so ago…?

Well, it’s time to share the whole card with you today!

There is such a lot of choice in the Polkadoodles digi store that I almost struggled to make a decision on which one to pick first!!  But then a gorgeous background paper caught my eye, and the rest of the card came together soooo easily!!

I chose the Lantern image from the Dollie Goes East collection.  In order to avoid having any white border showing around the fabulous Dollie, I merged her with the background paper, before printing and cutting on the Silhouette – I put a little offset border around her so that I could work out where to place her back on the image once she was coloured.  I love the way this has made her become part of the scene, whilst at the same time making her stand out against the background.

I coloured Dollie with ProMarkers, and added a light coat of clear Wink of Stella to the dress and her eye shadow – so sparkly!!

The papers and sentiment are also from the Dollie Goes East collection; it is so easy to find a co-ordinating paper from the amazing range of colours available – the hard part is narrowing it don to just one!!

Head over to the Polkadoodles blog now to see what the other Digi Queens have to inspire you with today.  And don’t forget that you can pop into the Polkadoodles digi store for instant downloads any time of day or night…!!  Don’t be surprised if you end up buying more than you planned though!

 

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

Kitty Bee May Spotlight

It’s that time again – the days are just flying by at the moment, life really seems to have stepped it up a gear…

Anyway, for today’s Kitty Bee spotlight card, I used the adorable Best Friend Buns stamp.  It’s my 13th Wedding anniversary in a few days, so I chose the image with an anniversary card in mind.  As my regular followers may remember, my better half prefers his cards CAS, which is good for me as that’s my comfort zone!  Even so, I was delighted with the finished card:

I printed the image and used my Silhouette to cut the image with a slight border.  I coloured the bunnies in a variety of Cool Grey ProMarkers, using a selection of reds for the heart and bow.  The sentiment is actually a freebie cut file from Amanda Robinson Studios, but I chose to print it directly on the card base instead of cutting it (love the script style!).  I popped the bunnies up on 3D pads, added some grey/white twine and a heart that I cut from red cardstock and smothered in Glossy Accents.  Couldn’t get much simpler 🙂

Pop over to Kitty Bee’s store now if you’d like to add Best Friend Buns to your collection!

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

Fantastic Tuesdays – CAS

 Inky Chicks – CAS

Ruby’s Rainbow – Animals

 

Scrappy Do!!

It’s time for a new challenge over at Kitty Bee’s Aloha Friday!  Our theme for this challenge is “Scraps” – we want to see at least three different scraps used in your project.  Our sponsor was Doodle Garden – the first time I’ve used one of their images, but definitely not the last; they’re so cute and very easy to work with!

On to my card then….  I chose to use Three Cheers for my project – I was looking for an image that would be ideal for paper piecing as I find this is the easiest way to use up the small odds and ends of papers that I can’t bear to throw away!  As soon as I saw this cute little girl, I could see her dress paper pieced, along with a matching bow….not to mention the flag!!

I coloured the image with Pro-Markers, then “dressed” her with the dress and bow that I had cut from a scrap of patterned paper from the Hip Hip Hooray Stack by American Crafts – in fact, all the patterned papers on the card are from the same stack, which is my absolute favourite because of the bright, juicy summer colours.  I also used scraps for the flowery stripes across the background, the flag and the sentiment.

I based the layout on the current sketch and twist challenge over at Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2. I chose to use the middle row (sentiment, designer paper, flower).  The frame and stripes have been popped up on 3D pads to create a little distance between the patterned background and the flowery stripes – might have caused a few migraines otherwise 😉 Unfortunately, I’ve just realised that our challenge goes live after the closing date, so I won’t be able to enter 😦  Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find a couple of other challenges to link up to!!

I look forward to seeing all your scrappy makes over at Kitty Bee’s Aloha Friday Challenge!

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

Cards Galore Encore – Anything Goes

 Crafty Hazelnuts Patterned Paper Challenge – Use Patterned Paper

Doodle Pantry – Any Digi Goes

Feeling Crafty – One For The Ladies

One Sweet Challenge – Flowers

Sarah Hurley 365 – Anything Goes

Love To Scrap GDT

I’m delighted to share with you today the card I have made for my first GDT post with Love To Scrap!

The challenge this week is “BINGO” – simply pick a column from the grid below and make a project that includes all the elements listed in that column…simple, eh?!

I choose the final column for my project, so I needed to include purple, brads, twine, embossing and any sentiment.  My image, Emmilou Boo, came from one of this week’s sponsors, Lacy Sunshine, who are offering 3 images for the winner of the challenge!  In addition, there is also the chance to win 3 images from the challenge’s other sponsor, The Stamping Chef!

I coloured Emmilou Boo using Pro-Markers.  I hadn’t thought about the lack of straw coloured markers in my collection….so I ended up spending a good while patch testing a variety of colour combos!  In the end I settled on Mustard, Tulip Yellow, Pastel Yellow and Putty, but to create some texture I tried my hand at Pointilism, putting down dots of colour rather than blending the inks.  I’m not 100% happy with the grass – I picked the colours in daylight, but it was late by the time I coloured and the end result is slightly more neon than I’d hoped, and not really in keeping with the pastel colours I’d used in the rest of the card, but on a positive note, I like the texture that the different shades of green have made!  Can’t win them all, eh?!  Stickles for the dandelion clocks and a glittery purple frame finished the image off.

I was originally planning to base the card around the curent sketch over at Crafting When We Can, but I couldn’t find an element for the top corner that I was happy with – I tried a few options, but they either made the card feel to cluttered or they looked insubstantial.  For the base layer, I have embossed some white cardstock using a freebie flower folder that came with a magazine, then blended some Dusty Concorde Distress Ink and mounted it on a pearlescent purple Bazzill cardstock.  The next layer just uses half a doily, mounted on the same cardstock.

The flower border is from the Silhouette Online Store, cut from a darker shade of purple cardstock.  The sentiment was created in Silhouette Studio, edged with Distress Ink, backed by some glitter cardstock and secured with a purple flower brad that has been living in my stash for a good few years, along with the butterfly beads, which I have secured using twine.

I have to confess that I had pretty much finished the card and was running through the list of required elements when I realised I’d missed something off – it went something like this “purple, check; embossing, check; sentiment, check; brad, check; twine……..ooops!”.  Luckily I was able to take the brad off, add the twine and butterflies and pop it all together pretty easily 🙂

Anyway, that’s just about it for now, make sure you head over to Love To Scrap for a look at the DT makes!  I’ll be back with another Love To Scrap GDT post later this month.

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

Make My Monday – Seasonal Colours

 Perfectly Rustics – Bling, Bling, Shine and Sparkle

Melonheadz Friends – Circles

Incy Wincy – 4+ Papers/Brads

Bunny Zoe’s – Distress

Card Mania Challenges – Embossing

We Do Doobadoo – Layers

Splendid!

My son is the biggest fan of Jack Skellington from A Nightmare Before Christmas!  So I couldn’t resist picking Jack the Pumpkin King by Sassy Designs for my latest DT card for Crafting From The Heart!  Our new challenge starts today; the theme is Anything Goes and we’re sponsored by Sassy Designs and Angi’s Digi Stamps.

I stuck to a CAS design, to keep the colour palette mainly black and white.  I’ve used Pro-Markers to colour Jack (Cool Grey 1 – 5 and Black) – the majority of his clothing is actually the two darkest shades of Cool Grey, with a smudge of Black for emphasis.  I still try to avoid colouring black (and red!) as I find it a little tricky, but I’m pleased with the result on this card.  The sentiment was added in Silhouette Studio before printing the image, using Chiller font.  Finally a black mat beneath the image, and it’s good to go!  Now I just need to keep it safe until November…..think I may have been a bit premature this year 😉

Don’t forget to head over to Crafting From The Heart to look at the other DT makes!

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

Lexis Creations – For the Man/Boy In Your Life

My Craft Spot – Black/White + One Colour

Without Words – Gentlemen Only

Digi Haven – Black/White + One Colour

Jellypark Friends – One For The Boys

That’s Crafty – Black/White and A Splash

Dragonfly Dreams – Make It For The Boys

Happy Birthday Wishes!

Just a short and sweet post for you today, my brother is staying with us after having a foot operation on Saturday so I’m a little rushed!

Today’s card was made for my son’s friend, who turned 7 yesterday.  One of my favourite digi image cards for boys featured Rusty the Robot from Pollycraft, so I dusted the file off and printed him out once more!!

I coloured the image with Pro-Markers and used backing papers from American Crafts and Megan Turnidge.  The layout was based on the current sketch over at Sketch Saturday:

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

Sketch Saturday – see sketch above

Pile It On – For A Guy