Sparkling Butterfly

Welcome - It's good to be back here - I have been MIA as we have been visiting some very important little people - our grandchildren.

This card was made in a hurry with some of the 'experiments' that had accumulated on my desk.  The most difficult part was selecting the background paper and card!

I started with the brightly coloured background panel

This was made using watercolour crayons on watercolor paper, heavily spritzed with water, then sprayed with lemon glimmer mist.

The butterfly was cut using a Marianne die, and had Kindy Glitz and pearls added. 

The sentiment was gold embossed on a scrap of the water colour block.  Both layers were mounted on black card before being layered over dp. 

The ribbon was embellished with triple bows of ecru pearle thread.  As I do not have a bow-easy, i use my fingers to make the loops - fiddly, but it works.

I love the way this card turned out.  I am linking this to:

Stampin' Sisters In Christ Challenge # 128 - variegated colours

Crafty Bloggers Network Challenge #15 - Spring Colours

Always Crafting, Creative Mondays challenge #2 - Anything Goes

Paper Creations Ink Challenge #19 - Show Us Your Style, Heat embossing

Sew Many Card Challenge #83 - Punches

Squigglefly Challenge #8 - Spring Colours

Paper Pretties Monday Challenge #28 - Rainbow
The Crazy Challenge #108 - Anything Goes
Ooh la la Creations Challenge #99 - Photo inspiration
Celebrate The Occasion - challenge#52 - birthday with bling
Clear it Out Challenge - Birthday with Bling (last of these pearls)
Stampn'Doodle - Embossing of Any Kind.

Thank you for visiting - may your day be blessed

Oh Deer!

Yes it is 'Oh Dear'!! Due to family commitments I am somewhat late in posting this, thankfully Sue, the owner of McMahon Five Design is very understanding and agrees that family is most important.

The image and sentiment are from a new set by Studio 313, called Dearest Deer.  I used the title sentiment, mounted it on a red base and added a couple of 'puffed' hearts (origin unknown).

The wee patchwork deer was painted using watercolour crayons, and mounted on the red scalloped oval by Spellbinders.  

The hearts on the rump of the deer were given added accent with some dimensional glue.

Kindy glitz was used to add sparkle to the deer and to the scallops.

The scalloped oval and sentiment were mounted on a light brown card that had been embossed with the branches folder by provo craft, sponged with tea stain distress ink, and mounted onto the red base card.

I am linking this to:

Delightful Sketches - weekly-challenge - Bling-it

Do You Stack Up Challenge #36 - Add Texture

The Rubber Cafe - Basically backgrounds - No designer paper

Digistamps4Joy - Challenge #27 - Use fall colours

I Brake  For Challenges- IBFCC#7 - backgrounds

Little Red Wagon Challenge #97 - die cuts

The Paper Shelter Challenge #30 - Embossing of any kind

Thank you for visiting - May your day be blessed

Eddie Elephant

Hello once again - it is still cold and stormy here, so I thought I would brighten my day with this cheerful character from McMahon Vintage Digital, who looks as though he has riden off the pages of a vintage children's book.

I thought this would be ideal for a child's birthday card, so I coloured the image with watercolour crayons.

I then mounted the image on a maroon base, added double sided sellotape and then glitter.... now I remember why I don't use this technique often, there is still glitter glittering in unexpected places!!

I also used the glitter on the corner pieces, embossed a greeting and added three gold rhinestones for added sparkle.

In this final photograph I have tried to capture (not very sucessfully) the intensity of the glitter.

I have decided to make three separate posts today, rather than one humongous one, hence the brevity of this.


I am linking this to:
Southern Girls Challenge #23 - Happy Birthday
Forever Friends Blog - Not Square & an Animal
Hanna and Friends #102 - Happy Birthday
Stampin' B's Challenge #112 - Use Bling - the glitter
Penny's Paper-crafty Challenge # 57 - Happy birthday
Ruby's Rainbow Challenges #7 - Happy birthday

May your day be blessed.

Sympathy cards

Greetings to all my cyber visitors.

The cards that I am sharing today were not easy for me to make as they are for members of a family with whom we have shared a lot of life with. My (adult) children grew up with their children, and we are all grieving the loss of their husband/father in an accident.

I took the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge as the starting point for this first card, and the fact that I found some gold trimmings that would 'work' for the end pieces was the next step.  

The image (from Our Daily Bread Designs) was stamped on water colour paper using aqua-crayons direct to stamp, and the same crayons were used for the background.

The sentiment was stamped and embossed - not the best embossing, partially due to the paper I was working on.

I was glad to be able to use the pearls and the bow to soften the look of the card, as without them it looked rather stark.

The double ric rak was the final detail.  

The panel that the main image is mounted on is a lovely paper that came in a pack I was given as a gift, and has a beautiful sheen on it.

Then came a second card, and again I was having difficulty trying to plan the card, so I ended up CASE-ING one from 'Lovely Linda'.

I started with a green card, and found some (Warehouse) design paper to layer onto it and sponged the edges to soften the 'join'.  It still looked very harsh, so I sprayed it with some Twinkling H2O's Radiant Rain aka Luminarte Shimmering Mist in Lemon Drop (which I know turns green on green paper - I don't know why it changes colour, but it is very useful at times)

I then stamped the the Victorian Frame from Layers of Color onto a lighter green card, and coloured it with chalks,  gold embossed the sentiment from Our Daily Bread Designs into the centre of that panel, then cut and embossed it using a Spellbinders Labels 14 die.

After assembling the card I then added the two pearls at either end of the panel. The flowers in the corners were white, but I touched them onto a Cantaloupe Memento ink pad, and then sprayed them with the same spray I used on the dp.  (this will give you an idea of the true colour of the paint!)

The green pearls in the middle of the flowers were the final touch.

Thank you for the inspiration Linda - I hope my CASE is acceptable.

I am linking these to

Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge # 85 (card 1)

 Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge #99 - flowers (card 2)

Paper Take Weekly challenge - anything goes Both Cards

Craft Your Passion Challenge #39 - anything goes (Both cards)

Thank you for visiting, and the comments you leave are very much appreciated - as some one said recently, we bloggers become comment 'junkies' :-)

May your day be blessed.

Buttons & A Bear

Greetings  to all my cyber visitors from a cool and wet and windy Antipodean Island.

I am still with family further north than 'home', so I know that it is not as cool as in other parts of the country - there is snow forecast in some areas to quite low levels. As I am not a fan of snow, I am quite happy to live where we do, and to be visiting further north at the moment, although I do miss DH, the cat, and my studio.

I thought I would share a card I made the week before I came away - I made it with a couple of challenges in mind, but never got it online in time. :-)

The challenges were to use buttons and something you had had/not used for over 12 months.  The stamp is one of my original ones, bought some 10 years ago... and I have not used it for years and subsequently it has languished at the back of a drawer.  

I stamped Winnie-the Pooh in black ink and embossed him, and then painted him using watercolour crayons, mounted the image to one side of an iridescent wrapping paper and then on the white card, which I distressed and sponged with red ink.

After fossicking  among my late mother-in-law's button collection, I found the five red buttons, and the sewed them on the border. This done I mounted it onto a bright blue card base.  

The greeting, from Kiwistamping, was stamped in red and embossed onto white card.  Then edges of this were distressed and sponged to match the other section, before filling in the font with a red pen to give the whole some balance.

I like the overall effect of this card and was happy with the outcome, although the layout fought me for a while.

Thank you for visiting, and may your day be blessed. 

Going Dotty

Greetings to my cyber visitors - it is beginning to look as though this blog is a case of feast or famine!!  I seemed not to be able to get to the computer last week, and this week I have the computer with me, but I am away from home and quite busy with my DD and Granddaughter. Not that I mind that.

I made this card shortly before I left home - it is basically quite a simple card, but because of the busy background paper, I would not call it a "clean and simple" card.

The elephant image is from the Layers of Color Polka Dot Parade set of stamps.  I stamped it onto watercolour paper (hence the slightly thickened edges to the image as the paper absorbed the ink rapidly) with Memento tuxedo black ink, and painted it with watercolour crayons. 


I then cut the image out using my nestabilities classic ovals (petite #5), embossed it and sponged ink onto the top and bottom of the image before removing the die,  then mounted it onto a yellow scalloped oval.


The card base was a lovely bright yellow card, the origins of which I do not know, over which I layered some some Warehouse (think Michaels in USA) design paper.  I stamped and embossed the greeting (from Kiwistamping) in gold, mounted the feature panel and it was complete.


A lovely bright card for a child's birthday done in about 30 minutes!


I am linking this to 

Crazy4challenges #47 - Inspiration Challenge

Stampin' Royalty Challenge #30 - KISS-_ Keep it Simple Sweetie

Thank you for calling by - I love it when you leave a comment - it makes my day.


May your day be blessed.