Holly's card

I'm back from my travels at last - did you miss me? Now we have a couple of weeks at home, so I'm hoping to catch up on some crafting, blogging and commenting. First of all I'm going to share with you the card I made for the 5th birthday of my granddaughter, Holly.

She loves all thinks pink and girly, odd really as she is quite a tomboy, and she specially asked me to make her a card with flamingoes on it. Now I didn't join in with last year's flamingo frenzy, so I have no suitable stash, but I found these images on the CD - Winnie in Wonderland from Polkadoodles. I really HAD to include the "You're entirely bonkers!" image, because we're always telling her that she is.  I used a backing paper, a design sheet and lots of extra elements from the CD then added pearly hearts and a sparkly "5".

I am sharing this with
A Bit More Time To Craft - Anything Goes
Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes
Glitter and Sparkle - Inspired by a kids film - Alice in Wonderland
Crafty Creations Challenges - Anything Goes
Fab 'n' Funky - Kid and Teenager Birthdays
Loves to Craft - Anything Goes

 

Jungle Fun at Cardz 4 Guyz

Today's new challenge day at Cardz 4 Guyz and our theme is Jungle Fun. We've decided to give everyone a chance to relax over summer, so for the time being our challenges will be every two weeks instead of every week, starting from today. We're also looking for two people to join us on the design team, so head over to the blog to see how to apply. Anyone who enjoys making cards suitable for men is welcome to apply - and don't panic if you've never been on a design team before: neither had I when I joined this lovely friendly team!

For the background I used Kraft card and a Uniko tropical leaves stamp set. First I stamped solid leaves with Versamark ink, and then the outline leaves in black randomly over the top.

The lion is from Woodware's Jungle Pals stamp set, stamped and coloured twice with some elelemnts of the second image fussy cut and layered over the first to add dimension. The frog and sentiment are from another Woodware set, In the Jungle. Punched leaves and a couple of die cut circles finish the card.

I was a bit uncertain about whether a lion was a jungle animal, as I associate them with the plains, but since the stamp set says so, and so does the song "The lion sleeps tonight", I'm voting for it to be a jungle animal!

Something beginning with B at Ooh La La Creations

It's new challenge day at Ooh La La Creations and the theme is "Something beginning with B".

I've chosen this lovely image and paper featuring Boats, which can be found on the Boys to Men CD, available here.

I used to live close to a fishing harbour on the very north coast of Scotland, and my husband used to live close to one in Cornwall, so although at opposite ends of the island, this scene is very familiar to us, as is the rope that is left trailing and looping all around the quayside, depicted here with twine. 

I stamped a wavy border around white card for the background and embellished my loop of "rope" with a die cut anchor - in fact I layered to together because a single one looked a little flimsy.

Inspired by Music at Quirky Crafts

It's time for out new Challenge at Quirky Crafts and this time our theme is "Inspired by Music" and we would like to see something inspired by the lyrics or title of your favourite song or piece of music - and tell us what the music is!

Our sponsor for this challenge is Ike's Art, and the image I have used is Windmill, to represent the song "Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam". There are mice in the song too, but the only mouse images I have aren't really right to use with this, so let's just imagine that all the mice are safely tucked up in their beds  inside the windmill.

I wanted to make this using more of a Delft blue, but I couldn't blend the colours properly with my blue inkpad, so I chose this pretty teal instead so that I could use Broken China DI, which I smooshed onto an acrylic block then used to paint the image, adding water a little at a time to get lighter and lighter shades.

The corners I have used are some very old white peel offs that are replicas of old Dutch tiles.

Anything Asian at CD Sundays

I'm very excited because today it's my first turn to choose the challenge at CD Sundays,  and I've chosen one of my favourite themes, "Anything Asian". I know Asian designs come in and out of fashion and you  may need to dust off one of your older CDs this time - but it's always fun to revisit long-neglected stash!

Don't forget that Asia is a very big continent, encompassing not just China and Japan but India, Thailand and part of the Middle East (as well as lots of other countries that don't seem to inspire as much craft stash!). But I've gone for an image that reminds me of the years I loved in Hong Kong,  this beautiful crane image and papers from Joanna Sheen's old CD "Oriental Dreams".

Because I was using a fairly old CD, I decided to use a fairly old fashioned style too, inspired by some of the designs that used to be created on QVC in the days when they sold Kameo Cards kits. I really enjoyed making this, looking through all the old images and digging out my old, almost-finished sheets of peel offs.

Inspired by a film, book or music at Cardz 4 Guyz

It's my turn to choose the theme at Cardz 4 Guyz, and I'd like to see something inspired by a film, book or piece of music.

I was planning to do the film Rocky, as I knew I had a boxing glove image on a CD somewhere, so I started browsing through my CDs to find it (if you are interested, it's in the Sports and Hobbies section of The Best of La Pashe 2014). But as I scrolled, I suddenly realised I was humming the old George Formby song "When I'm cleaning windows".

The CD I was browsing was another La Pashe one called "Something for Everyone" and the window cleaner image had got so firmly embedded in my brain I just had to use it!

The background is embossed with a Crafters Companion embossing folder and the ladder die cut with a die from the First Edition Tools set.

There are several layers of simple decoupage - not enough for a detailed image, just enough to add interest to it.

I finished the "cleaned" section of the glass with Glossy Accents and added clear Wink of Stella to the "foamy" areas.

And for my younger, or non-British friends who may not be familiar with the song, here it is - the image is perfect for it!



I am sharing this with:
Alphabet Challenge - D for Decoupage

Snowflakes at Sparkles Christmas

The first of the month means it's new challenge time at Sparkles Christmas, and this month we would like to see snowflakes on your cards.

I've used my trusty old Hero Arts snowflake stamp, stamped and heat embossed in silver with a hint of colour added with Promarkers. It's the colour scheme suggested on the stamp back,  and although I've tried other colourways I always come back to this one - it's just so frosty looking!
The sentiment is stamped with a magazine freebie from a couple of years ago.

I am sharing this with
Christmas Cards All Year Round - precipitation 
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - May