Summer at C.R.A.F.T Challenge

It's time for my latest GDT post at C.R.A.F.T. Challenge and today our theme is Summer.

The sponsor for this challenge is Digital Delights who will be giving a $5 gift voucher to the winner. 

The image I have used is called Patchy Bear. I have coloured and fussy cut the image and created a beach scene from snippets of card.

 


That cute beach towel embellishment was from a pert-used sheet of stickers a friend passed on to me. I die cut a sunshine, added a stamped sentiment from a Gruffles set and seagulls and starfish from a recent Papercraft Essentials cover gift set.
The sunshine is cut using a piece of vintage style metallic card and a die from the Dies R Us "Out of this world" set.

I am sharing this with
Dies R Us - Summertime Fun 

Happy anniversary

This is the card I made for my younger daughter and her husband for their anniversary

I used my Grand Calibur and a Santoro folder to dry emboss the background and stamped and heat-embossed the sentiment using a Clarity stamp club stamp from several years ago. I coloured it in with my daughter's favourite shade of green, and her husband is a Beatles fan so the song title "All you need is love" is very appropriate for them.

I am sharing this with
Shopping Our Stash - She's a Craftin' machine (none of my machines are neglected but I used my heat gun and Grand Calibur)
Use Your Stuff - Inspired by a song

Teeny tiny stamps

For this card I've dug out my old Rubberstamp Tapestry stamps - nowadays they are sold under the brand name Card-Io and are tiny clear stamps, but back in the day when I bought mine, they were mounted on long wooden pegs.

I combined stamps from several different sets and stamped them using the separate colours from a couple of Kaleidacolor pads.

I am sharing this with

Inkspirational - Use Small stamps


The Flower Challenge - use any previous challenge - I've used challenge 3 - Use an older stamp or die

Happy birthday Lara

Yesterday was the 9th birthday of our granddaughter Lara and here is the card I made for her.

Being a summer birthday, I've used lots of bright summer colours and flowers - and featured one of Lara's hobbies, tennis. I was delighted to find this Lili of the Valley digi called "Annabel tennis" as she is wearing denim dungaree shorts which apparently are what every 9 year old girl is wearing at the moment. According to Lara, anyway! I've added background papers from my stash and flowers cut with a die set that a friend bought me for my birthday last year - I'm afraid I don't know the brand as there was no name on the packaging.

I am sharing this with

A bit more time to craft - Anything Goes
Cuttlebugmania - Summer 
Sparkles Monthly Challenges - Lets be pretty  

Metallic madness at Cardz 4 Guyz

It's time for our new challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz and our theme for you this time is Metallic Madness.

For the "pegboard" I inked the raised dots of a Swiss Dots embossing folder then used it to emboss a piece of kraft card, so the black dots formed indentations, then "aged" it a bit by smudging with a bit more black ink. The other part of the "workshop" surface is silver mirri embossed with a hatched design. I added screw head brads to the pegboard part.

The tools are cut with a scrap of matte silver card - they are a set of First Edition dies. The proportions are wildly different aren't they? If the drill and spanner were scaled down by the same amount, it would take half a dozen strong men to lift the spanner! The sentiment is made with a Dymo label machine - I really had to do it that way as my Dad was a frantic Dymo labeller and absolutely everything on his tool bench had at least one label, so the sentiment is a tribute to him!

A stamp is for life, not just for Christmas...

The stamp I've used for this card is very much NOT a Christmas stamp, but I've often wondered whether it would work as one if coloured in suitably festive colours. I reckon with the addition of a Christmas sentiment and some bling, it just about works! The wreath stamp is a very, very old Stampendous stamp called Rose Ring, which I coloured with Promarkers, and stamped words from a Uniko Christmas sentiment set in the centre.

I am sharing this with
52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Wreaths
Just Us Girls - Red, Black and one other Colour

Twofer Trees

… and trees for two, Yew for me, and me for Yew....

Right, having given you all an unexpected ear worm, on with my entry for this months Twofers challenge, where the theme is TREES.

You may have read about my UTEE saga that meant my first attempt to create an entry for this month's challenge was a dismal failure as I killed my poor stamp after making just one card. So I dusted off another old favourite tree stamp and started again. The stamp is All Night Media "Winter Trees"  and I've had it for about 20 years.

I use it most often in sympathy cards, because of the simplicity of it, and having unfortunately needed to make several sympathy cards recently, it was the first thing that sprang to mind.

I don't like fussy, ornate sympathy cards, I prefer simple, calm designs, and  this stamp is perfect for the purpose.

And of course being a winter design, the stamp is perfect for Christmas cards too. Here I have recreated the view from my childhood bedroom on Christmas Eve each year. I always SWORE I could see Santa flying over the treetops in the lane across the field from our house!

I masked a space for a "window" and filled it with sponged blue Colour Cloud blending ink, then stamped the tops of the trees along the bottom of the window, stamping again either side without reinking the stamp. Then I stamped the Santa silhouette above it - the stamp was a gift from a friend, so I don't know the origin of it but I think she got it with a magazine. I removed the masking, ruled a "window frame" and then finished the sky with starlight from a silver glitter gel pen. In the photo it just looks like grey dots but in real life it has a pretty twinkle.

The sentiment is stamped with a Uniko stamp set.