Going Green

Don't look at the bottom right hand corner of this card! Why? Because it wasn't until I'd finished making it that I realised my masking tape had slipped, so the border isn't dead straight.

OK *sigh* you've all looked at  it now, haven't you? So I've got that out of the way. I masked off the edges of my card and then sponged over it various shades of green from the Kaleidacolour Fresh Greens pad, keeping the darker colours towards the corner and fading away to the lighter ones. Then I overstamped the shading with ferns and foliage in various shades of green, using stamps from an old Graphicus set, plus one small fern polymer stamp that I think had been a magazine freebie (and disintegrated when I took it off the acrylic block!), using the hedge-parsley plant from the set as a focal point by stamping it in black.

The sentiment was a magazine freebie and is currently my favourite sentiment stamp, as regular readers have probably gathered!

I'm sharing this with

One Layer Simplicity - Let Green March In

Spring is coming....

OK it may not feel like it, I know a lot of the UK woke up to their first significant snow of the winter today, but the birds are definitely pairing up in the garden and there's serious blue tit activity around the nesting box, so spring really can't be that far away!

I was really taken with these sweet little bird and nest embellishments when I went to the Make It show last week, they are perfect for decorating a spring themed card.

The background is a daffodil-printed vellum from a very old issue of Making Cards, topped with a die cut doiley using card to match the birds. The die is an old unlabelled one but I'm fairly sure I bought it from The Range which means it's probably an X-cut one. Ready made doileys are all very well but sometimes it's nice to be able to have a customised one! Then scraps of hessian and ribbon were all that was needed to finish the card.

I'm sharing this with:

Lunagirl Moonbeams - Spring Flowers and Birds
Cuttlebugmania - Welcome Spring
Craft Rocket Challenges - Feathers and/or Fur  

That Hunkydory kit again

I'm determined not to give up on this Hunkydory kit yet - well, actually it's the combined contents of two kits - there are so many gorgeous elements in it and yet I really struggle to make anything interesting from them. Today I've picked a lilac-flowered topper and an assortment of coordinating elements, and made my base card out of cardstock from the kit - a bit wasteful, I know, as it could have been cut to make the fronts of two cards, but if I'd layered it onto a plain card it would have really called out for silver matting and I felt there was already such a lot of silver in the elements it would have just been Too Much.

I am sharing this with Creative Card Crew where the theme is Lavender and Lace (or in my case, Lilac and Lace!)
And many thanks to Liz for reminding me that the colour means I can also share this with the Butterfly Challenge - Glitter and/or Grape - for some reason I still had it stuck in my head that stamping was needed this time!

Happy Spring

I have to confess to coming close to admitting defeat when I saw that the current challenge at Less is More is the recipe "Use some wire" - however I still have some wire and pliers left from dabbling with jewellery making in my teens (and that was a long time ago, I am 60 now - but the wire is still shiny!) so I got them out and fiddled around for a bit. I was idly watching TV and winding a bit round a pokey tool and suddenly thought "Oh look, I've made a little spring!"

That led me on to thinking about spring the season which we are allegedly heading into now, although this morning's sleet storm didn't feel very spring like, and the concept of "Spring Flowers". And that's how the idea for this card was born.

I did the lettering by hand because I didn't want it to be all neat and uprightbut I'm rubbist at lettering and this is about my 15th attempt and still, now it's finished, some of the letters in the bottom row don't look quite right to me.

I held the springs in place with Pinflair glue at the bottoms, and hid that by hand-cutting a strip of grass from green card and attaching it with narrow foam tape. the yellow flowers scattered among the grass are made by repeatedly punching a scrap of yellow card with the larger hole on my Cropadile, and the flower gems and tiny fabric butterfly are from my stash.

Fantasy beachcomber

Today I've used for the very first time a CD-ROM that I won from a blog candy at Crafting with Cotnob a few months ago.  The CD is a Joanna Sheen CD and project book featuring the work of artist Josephine Wall, with 22 different design sets, each featuring a main image, either as a set of different sized images or a two-sheet decoupage, and a co-ordinating background paper. I hadn't used the CD until now as the images on it are huge, so I wanted to get some 20cm square card blanks, which I finally got at the Make It show last week.

Following a suggestion in the book, I printed the design sheets out onto glossy photo paper, rather than the matte  craft paper from La Pashe that I normally use for CD print outs. And I'm very glad that I did - nothing else could possibly be good enough for the amazingly detailed artwork that Josephine has created! When the images emerged from the printer, they totally wowed me - such amazing and intricate detail! I'm sorry for all the exclamation marks in this post but whenever I look at the image my head just fills up with exclamation marks!!! The photo here really doesn't do justice to the exquisite detailing of the artwork.

Cutting out the decoupage made really curse appreciate the detailed artwork. I have to confess that the water droplet on the end of the shell caused me to use a few seriously unbloggable words! But oh my, it was worth it, to see the end result with the beautiful beachcomber fairy, with her multi-coloured wings and seashell jewellery, gazing at the tiny mermaid she has found in a shell.

No embellishment was really necessary, but I had a few little seashell beads that match the blue scallop shell in the fairy's hair, so they were perfect to use with it.

Just to show how many layers there are!

I am sharing this with

Darnell at DJKardKreations - NBUS  (the CD-ROM)

Suzy Bee's Blooming Challenge - Fantasy
Glitter and Sparkle - Things with wings

Create Your Own Background at Cardz 4 Guyz

This week Joan has chosen the theme at Cardz 4 Guyz - she would like us to create our own backgrounds.

I decided to go for a CAS look by creating a very simple all-over stamped background using the tack and screw stamps from Cathie Shuttleworth's "DIY Bits" set, with the main image stamped using some of the tools from the set.  I coloured the tools in with Promarkers and a silver gel pen, and mounted the topper using screw-headed brads.

We'd love you to pop over to Cardz 4 Guyz and share your ideas with us - and don't forget to keep it masculine!

Old Fashioned Christmas at Sparkles Christmas

It's time for this month's challenge at Sparkles Christmas - this month Joan has set the challenge, which is Old Fashioned Christmas. There's a prize for  the winning entry - 7 Digi stamps from Bugaboo stamps, so that's a great incentive for you to come and join in and get ahead with your Christmas card making!

 

The image, sentiment and background paper I have used are printed from the CD Classic Christmas  by Katy Sue Designs. I have added gold matting, ribbon and doyleys to give it a really vintage feel.  I love the detailing in this image - the contented cat, the steaming cup of tea and the little train among the gifts under the tree all add to the charm.

I am sharing this with

Jingle Belles - all bundled up