Winter warmers

I'm loving the Clearly Besotted "Drink and be merry" stamp set that I won in the Playground - here's the second of many airings for it, this time featuring the cocoa mug images.

I chose the "eat, DRINK and be merry" sentiment because a well-laden mug of festive cocoa, with all the cream and marshmallows and sprinkles and edible stirrer is more of a meal than a drink. I used Versamark ink to stamp them randomly over the red card background  then trimmed it with fancy scissors and matted it onto green. Then I stamped the three mug images and sentiment and coloured them with Promarkers and matted the panel to match the background layers.

I am sharing this with

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Anything goes/use some green

52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Cocoa


Passion for Promarkers - Use 3 of something 

Jingle Belles - use a lot of red 

and a second visit to Christmas Kickstart where the theme is also red, because I've used a lot more than I did on my first entry (same set of stamps though!)

Anything goes at CD Sunday Plus

Our latest Anything Goes challenge has just started at CD Sunday Plus. Do come along and join in - you don't have to use a CD, you can use a downloaded image or papers or something printed out from a USB .

I've used a CD called "Making cards for men" that was free with making Cards magazine a few years ago.

The apple is an image from the CD, fussy cut and added with 3D adhesive. I've used a scrap of woodgrain paper from the same CD to represent a teacher's desk and some brickwork paper from a previous project for the wall. I've used black card for a blackboard  and doodles on it with white gel pen.

Rose swag

In my last post I used an ombré stencilled kraft background - well, while I was playing around with the technique I also made a similar one in shades of pink, which I've used here.

After making the background, I used the darkest ink again to stamp leaf sprigs randomly over it, then added a birthday sentiment.

Next I stamped the rose swag onto watercolour paper. As it is a very stylised image I kept the colouring stylised too by first colouring each section lightly all over with a lighter shade of watercolour pencil then, section by section, blending it with a very wet brush. While still wet, I added strokes with a darker coloured pencil and allowed it to blend slightly, giving a bit of encouragement  where necessary with a fine, slightly damp brush.  All the stamps came from a recent covermount on Creative Stamping.

I  used the back of my scissors to gently curve some of the leaves before attaching with 3-D adhesive.

I am sharing this with

Alphabet Challenge - Anything you wish

Uniko Studios 8th Birthday Linky Party 

The Flower Challenge - Add Leaves


Stamping Sensations - Feminine 

Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes

Cor(e) what a pear!

Here are the cards I've made for this month's Twofers Card Challenge, where the theme is Fruit. The stamp I've used on both cards is from a very old Studio G mini set. 

For my first card I used a technique I read about here on Nancy's blog  - blending several shades of green onto kraft card to make an ombré effect and then stencilling the darkest shade over the top.  I used the same inks to stamp the pear and the sentiment from the same set and then finished off with some candi. 

I am sharing this with 

Addicted to CAS - Ombré 

Now my second card

This time I stamped the first and last parts of the sentiment to gauge their positions, stamped pear repeatedly over the remaining card front in Versamark ink and heat embossed with gold powder, then the partridge (fussy cut from a larger image) and middle part of the sentiment on a separate scrap of card. I coloured the partridge with Promarkers and edged the sentiment with a gold Delicata pad. 

I am sharing this with

Christmas Crafts All year Round - Hearts/Love 

Fezziwig's Festive Frolics - Anything Goes

And finally, the two together

And of course I'm sharing these with the second birthday challenge at Twofers - Fruit.  

Step Block Butterflies #2

I made this card from the rest of the sheet of  card that I started in my previous post, using Mrs A's second set of instructions for the card shape.

This time both sides of the card feature, and I've finished it with die cuts and pearls. The butterfly is a two layer die and I sponged the upper one lightly with green ink.

Again I'm just claiming the step block card although I've accidentally used all the colours too!

I am sharing this with

The Butterfly Challenge - Spin the wheel with  the letter S

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - February anything goes 

Watercooler Wednesday - All about Occasions (birthday)

Step Block Butterflies #1

At the Butterfly Challenge this time the card shape is a step block card and Mrs A has given us tutorials for two different types of card, neither of which I'd tried before. I'm going to put them in separate posts because I know there's a knack for adding the same post twice to one linky - but I don't know what it is! So here is the first card.

I used a piece of NBUS  double sided 12 x 12 card to make the basic step block shape and decorated  it by sticking some old embroidery peel offs (they are so old that when I got them, Alan and Barry were still the main/only presenters on Create and Craft - do you remember them?)  then piercing all the marked dots and stitching through the holes. The Butterfly was cut with a Mackintosh style die - sadly I don't own a copy of the doe so a friend cut it for me, I keep checking Craft Stash to see if it's back in stock but no luck so far. It is cut in white and I sponged it randomly with pale blue ink.

I've just noticed two things: the first is that I should have folded the flaps front-over-back rather than back-over-front and the second is that the patterned paper contains all the colours from the challenge wheel, and  as I've used the card shape and some stitching I could have added some spots and claimed a full house. I don't suppose the dots to mark the stitch holes on the peel offs count as spots do they? Oh well, never mind!

And of course I am linking this up at The Butterfly Challenge

Brads and/or Eyelets at Cardz 4 Guyz

This fortnight at Cardz 4 Guyz it's my turn to choose the challenge and I'd like to see some brads and/or eyelets somewhere on your card.

I've just treated myself to a pack of music brads, including treble clefs and various notes,  so naturally I had to use some of those. The tag stamp was a recent magazine freebie, and I dusted off the Cropadile and used it to add an eyelet to the hole at the top. An embossed background and a violin (an unmounted stamp older than the hills) keep the card looking CAS even though there's a lot going on here.