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

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

19Dec2013

Blonde or Brunette Pixie Holly – Your Choice!

by verybellemakes

Today I have two fairly identical cards to show you. A very good friend asked me to make Christmas cards for her daughter and niece, based around this card.

The girls are the same age, all but a day, but one is very blonde, while the other is much darker haired. So I decided to incorporate this into the cards, to personalise Pixie Holly a little more.

Pixie Holly was a freebie from Pollycraft earlier in the year before the shop closed. I have made several cards with her this year, she’s a pleasure to work with! As usual I coloured with Pro-Markers, adding some Stickles o the wings for a little magical sparkle. The spotty and striped background papers were from Digital Bake Shop on Etsy, and were a sale bargain! I cut the sentiment using some glittercard and my Silhouette, welding an offset version of the sentiment to a rectangle to create the red background. I matted the image onto a little green glittercard too. The little holly leaves have been abandoned in stash for ages, no idea where they popped up from!! Glad they’ve been put to good use now though 🙂

I based the cards around Sketch #225 from Saturday Sketch, in the current challenge, you can pick from a back catalogue of sketches – there really is one to suit every card!!

Thanks for reading x

12Nov2013

Super Lenny!

by verybellemakes

November and December are both very busy months for birthdays in my little world! This Saturday, my son will turn 7 – and every year I find myself becoming more and more sentimental, wondering where the days, months and years have gone since we brought our first little bundle home from hospital!! I also think back to meeting a group of new mums who have since grown into close friends, as we have sat back and watched our first-borns grow so quickly from helpless infants into the independent boys and girls they are today…. Still, that’s more than enough of a trip down Memory Lane, onto today’s card!

This is the card I have made for Lenny. The superhero stamp is one of the stamps I recently won from MelJen (thank you MelJen!); I love his stance and the way his mouth looks like he’s speaking! He was coloured with Promarkers, printed and cut using the Silhouette. The starburst background was a freebie paper from Megan Turnidge – I love the combination of superhero and starburst! The blue and white star paper was another freebie, this time from MeinLilaPark – there are so many great papers to choose from here that I struggle to make a decision… I have used several now and each time, I am impressed with the quality and designs. For the banners, I used a Silhouette cut file and some more free DPs from MeinLilaPark.