Blue Christmas!

This afternoon, in between putting my decorations up, I took a break to have a coffee and finish the card I started yesterday.

My card is for the Pals Paper Arts challenge, and their theme is something for "Puttin' on the Ritz" with extra sparkle, shine, or decoration.

I thought of putting some "bling" on a Christmas tree, but as I don't have one in the form of a stamp, I decided to make one out of the scroll in the SU Strength and Hope set.

This is how it turned out

I started by stamping the whole scroll in Versamark on navy card and heat embossing it with a silver pearl powder. Then I reduced the size of each scroll the higher it went, till the fourth and last scroll was just the heart and leaves.

The BS was used to cut labels from the stamped navy and silver cards, that were then layered. I rounded the corners of a square cream card and a matt of pale blue card that had been wrapped with silver and navy ribbons was added, onto which the stamped panel was placed on 3D pads for added dimension. The finishing touches were the sentiment stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with silver powder, and the addition of clear gems to the tree and the "i" in Winter.

Recipe :

Card = Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, and Silver and cream cards from my stash

Stamps = Strength and Hope and sentiment from my stash
Inks = Versamark
Tools = Big Shot, Nestabilities labels, and Heat gun
Extras = Ribbons, Silver and Silver Pearl powders, and gems


Thanks for looking at my blog today and I'd love to see what you think.

Oh, and a big "Hello" and "Welcome" to my new followers, thank you for your support.

Snowmen Smiles

Today, I've put my Christmas icicles and lights up outside, and I still have to put my indoor tree up and decorate it, but I can't get in the festive spirit yet, so I've made a card instead.

I will be entering it into the Friday Mashup challenge where they want snowmen, the colour palette of Blushing Bride, Baja Breeze, and Basic Grey, or both the snowmen and the colours.

I will also put it into the The Paper Players challenge where they are looking for a Christmas project with non holiday stamps or colours.



So here is my card with Snowmen in non traditional colours, what do you think??

I started with a white card and rounded the corners before randomly stamping snowflakes in pink and blue. I then used the BS to cut 2 Sizzix Snowmen, 1 grey and 1 blue label, and embossed the grey label with dotty snowflakes. The labels were layered, white stitches drawn on, and wrapped with a ribbon and placed on the card. The snowmen were coloured with SU write markers and had Cosmic Twinkles added before they were placed on the labels. Finally, the greeting was stamped in Versamark on blue card, heat embossed with white powder, and stuck on 3D pads between the snowmen.

Recipe :

Card = Pool Party ( I don't have Baja Breeze), Basic Grey, and White card from my stash

Stamps = Snowflakes and sentiment from a kit I've had for too long to remember where from

Inks = Blushing Bride, Pool Party, and Versamark

Tools = Big Shot, Sizzix snowman die and Texture plates, SB nestabilities labels, Heat gun, and Xcut corner rounder

Extras = Pro Markers, Cosmic Twinkles, Ribbon (coloured with Blushing Bride marker), White gel pen, and 3D pads.

Thanks for dropping by today, and I hope you liked my card.

I must let you all know that I'm having Internet problems at the moment, so if I go AWOL again it's because of that...........fingers crossed it will be ok till the new year.



Feeling Square??

This is the second post of the day, and I made a card for the Pals Paper Arts challenge #116 where they had this square card sketch.



I was again using my new stamps, and some of the smaller stamps made me think of the swinging 60's, so that was my starting point for the colour scheme.


Here is the finished item

Instead of straight lines on the squares I decided to use a labels nestabilitie. Using a square white card as the base I cut the nestabilities shape at the corners and then randomly stamped in black the circle and flower shape before colouring them in with SU markers. With the BS I cut three labels, coral, green, and white, and the later was put through in an embossing folder, and then all stuck in the center of the base card. I then stamped the large flower several times on white card, coloured them in, and cut out 4 different layers. The first two were stuck on the embossed label, and then the center circle and flower were stuck on with 3D pads to give dimension. As the background is so busy I decided not to put a sentiment on this card so it is useful for all occasions.


Recipe :  Card = Whisper White, Calypso Coral, and Pear Pizzazz
Stamps = Playful Petals
Inks = Black, Calypso Coral, Pear Pizzazz, Blushing Bride, and Lucky Limeade
Tools = Big Shot, Labels nestabilities, and Budding Vine embossing folder


Right, I'd better go and round up all the dogs toys before they get damp.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with some more creations.

Rockin' Robin

Phew, it's been scorchio here today, and it's supposed to get even hotter tomorrow, so I will be doing everything possible to keep in the shade.

I've had another busy day, but managed to find some time to make a card. I saw over at Kraft Journal challenge  they were asking for us to "Use a Sketch" as inspiration or CASE it.                                         Some time ago I saw this sketch at Clean and Simple challenge and loved it's simplicity, so have decided to use it.

I'm still doing the Christmas list for my friend ( and I think this is the last one?) so this is what I came up with.

 

 I started with a cream card and masked off an area a third of the way down with Post Its. I sponged this area with green, and then randomly stamped a pine sprig, a leaf, and holly leaves in various green inks, before drawing a wiggely gold line along the outline.  I then used the BS to cut 3 labels in cream and stuck them on the green stamped panel ( sadly the photo doesn't really show how the green makes the cream labels stand out ). I made 3 Robins with the Bird punch and stuck one on each of the labels. The finishing touch was the green stamped sentiment above the border which was put in place with my Stamp-a-ma-jig.

Recipe : Card = SU So Saffron, Chocolate Chip, Poppy Parade, and cream card from my stash

Inks = Certainly Celery, Always Artichoke, and Handsome Hunter

Stamps = Dovecraft

Tools = Big Shot and Labels Nestabilities

Extras = Gold Pilot marker

Have you noticed the middle Robin is facing the wrong way? When sticking them together I hadn't noticed he was the other way around till I came to put them on the card, but I think I like it that he is different. What do you think?

  

Today, Mum has been here helping me to clean my carpet in my lounge and dining room with a Vax machine. Our logic was that the humid weather would help to dry them afterwards, but we didn't invisage just how hot we would get doing it. Neither of us are in the best of health and both are crippled with RA, so the moaning and groaning we did would have made a hole in the Ozone layer! Still it got done, and I was glad to sit and rest this evening and do some crafting.

This weekend we will be doing various things for Nathan's 4th birthday, so I wont get chance to do anything else till next week.

I hope you all have a good weekend and can make the most of the returning summer before it disappears again.

Thanks for dropping by today.

Triple Layer Dandelion Wish

This afternoon I have had an hour to myself, and I've spent it unwinding and trying to craft. Again, I've struggled with where and what to start, but finally decided to hit two for the price of one with the CAS-ual Fridays challenge #21 hinting at the colours idea ( I went with shades of Green with Brown ), and Less is More challenge for the layout.






I used a cream square card as the base and stamped the sentiment in brown in the bottom corner. With the BS I cut 3 label nestabilities in 3 different green cards and layered them with the darkest at the bottom and lightest on the top. I then stamped the dandelion head in brown on the top card.



This is the finished simple card, what do you think?

Recipe : Card = SU Garden Green, Green Galore, Gable Green, and cream card from my stash

Ink = Chocolate Chip

Stamps = Personal Impressions

Tools = Big Shot and Labels nestabilities

Thanks for looking here today, and I'll be back again with some more project soon ( I hope!)

Autumn Foliage

Today while hanging the washing out I saw that my pond had a layer of leaves floating on the surface, so out came the fishing net and a scooping I went!! I noticed their lovely combination of autumn colours, and this got my creative juices flowing for when I sat down to craft in front of the TV for the Grand Prix.

I automatically reached for my French Foliage set, and decided to use the sketch at Mojo Monday challenge #207 as a starting point.


This is my interpretation of the sketch, and I simply love the colours.

I started with a cream card and cut a squares of orange, brown, and 2 white card . I randomly stamped the white squares with the 3 leaves from the set in yellow, brown, and rust, and then the splats and postal mark in grey. The white squares were then mounted on the orange and brown cards that had had their edges roughened with my scissors, and placed at an angle on the front of the card. I then used my BS and cut 2 labels, 1 red and 1 white. The white one was stamped with the sentiment and layered on the red one  and placed off center over the squares. With my BS still out, I cut 1 red and 2 orange multi layered Flowers, curled the petals and placed them on the right side of the top label, and a brown leaf stamped onto brown card added to the left with a ribbon bow above it. The finishing touches were 3 brown leaves and gems added to the flowers.

Recipe :  Card = SU Pumpkin Pie, Poppy Parade, Whisper White, Brown and cream cards from my stash
Stamps = French Foliage and Verve
Inks = Crushed Curry, Sahara Sand, Adirondack Rust and Espresso
Tools = Big Shot, Labels Nestabilities, and Crealies flowers
Extras = Gold ribbon and gems.


Thanks for dropping by and I hope you like my card, and I would love to hear what you think if you have time to leave a comment.

I plan to do more crafting tomorrow, so call back if you can.

Stampin' Royalty Challenge

This is the sketch for this weeks Stampin' Royalty Challenge.                 Luckily I made my entry last night as I've had a nightmare of a day today. It didn't start too well when I went back to sleep after feeding the dog at 6am, and it's felt like I've been trying to make up for lost time all day. As well as this I've lost my mojo and have no creativity in my brain what so ever, and cant even match two colours together. I hope it will come back soon, as the last time this happened it went on for months and nothing could inspire me!!!!!!! Fingers crossed that over the weekend it will return.   

Anyway,this is what I came up with.   After making the cards for the OLW at Simplicity, I was missing my BS, so just had to get it out and cut some labels and flowers for this one.

 Recipe : Card stock is SU Whisper White,Lavender Lace,and Orchid Opulence

 Stamps : SU Curvy Verses

 Inks : SU Orchid Opulence

 Tools : Big Shot & dies, Martha Stewart and Fiskars punches

 Extras : Patterned paper,ribbon bow,and gems from my stash

Today has not been a good day............I've been out all morning, and then went rushing to mum's to water the garden pots and conservatory plants to get home for the tennis.....well,what is it they say "More haste, less speed"!!!!!, never a truer word was spoken.As I'd turned the outside hosepipe water on (which is controlled by a stopcock tap in the new extension being built) and walked back outside through the extension and conservatory to do the watering, the nozzle at the end of the hose was turned off,so the pressure built up in the pipe causing it to blow its connection at the inside tap, pouring gallons of water into the new extension which had become the dumping ground for garden chairs etc. and building equipment. By the time I'd realised why there was no water coming out of the hose and had gone back inside the place was flooded............I could have cried.
Some of the building supplies stored in the extension were too heavy for me to move so I could only mop up what I could reach.I'm praying that this predicted heatwave will happen tomorrow so it will help matters before the folks get back on Sunday evening.

Sorry for ranting and moaning,but now I've got it out of my system I'm starting to feel a bit better.

I'm still finding my way in this blogging lark,and this morning my friend Jacqueline has shown me how to do the labels and blinkies etc, so I hope I can catch up with things over the weekend and make my blog more appealing.

As always, thank you so much for dropping by,and I hope I haven't scared you away.
Hope to see you again soon. Bev.x

You've got Male!

Hello all
This morning I have been busy helping my friend Rita tidy her house as she's got relatives from New Zealand coming to stay, but I just had to get home to watch Nadal play on the first day at Wimbledon. Needless to say he's won his match easily,so I'm waiting for Murray's match to come on ( if rain doesn't stop play!!).

Anyway,while waiting I've popped over to the Simply Stampin challenge to see that they want a card for a male.So here is what I came up with

I started with a 5" x 7" SU Whisper White card and rounded the corners.Then I used a label die through the BS to cut some watercolour card and dark blue card from my stash. I stamped the pickup, hearts,and sentiment from SU Loads of Love in black Archival ink, and coloured it in with water colour pencils.I then masked the pick up with a Post It  and stamped the leaf from All Natural in Certainly Celery to look like trees behind.I inked the edge of the Xmas tree from LOLove with Always Artichoke and used it to make a grass verge at the roadside.

Once the images were coloured and stuck down I added beneath it a blue tartan ribbon with a double bow,hanging from which is a silver metal heart. I hope it still looks like a masculine card, what do you think??                                                                                           That's me done for today  and I am now going to get my bag packed ready to go to Jacqueline's tomorrow to do whatever the theme is she's set for her blog Make My Monday  . Hopefully we will get some crafting done in between the chatting and drinking coffee.!!  

Please pop back tomorrow to see what we got up to,if anything at all.

Thanks for all your lovely comments, I do appreciate each and every one. 

                                                                                       

 Bye for now,Bev.x