CYP Challenge #83

I was really chuffed when Lisa who is the Guest Design Team Coordinator over at Craft Your Passion contacted me to see if I'd like to join them for GDT throughout November. Of course I said yes and got crafting straight away on my first project for their blog using some lovely Bearly Mine papers and cute girly images from Sassy Studio. I've played with a number of techniques on my card including distressing and paper piecing.

The challenge is ANYTHING GOES + BROWN so please pop over and join in here!

The top corner actually detaches from the card and is a matching bookmark:

Supplies
Image - Reading Rachel by Sassy Studio
Colouring Medium - Premier Prismacolor Pencils
Cardstock - 270 gsm coloured card from Lidl
Papers - Cheery Days by Bearly Mine
Distress Inks - Spiced Marmalade, Worn Lipstick, Tea Dye
Die - Classic Circle and Classic Scalloped Circle Nestabilities
Borders - Daisy Fan design cut on Craft Robo
Seam Binding - Local craft shop, coloured with distress inks
Pearls - Hobbycraft

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Crafty Cardmakers - Challenge 55, Colour Combo
• Di's Digi Designs - Ribbon and Bows

Cake Slice Card

This card was a quick make for my boyfriend's sister back in August. The image from Delicious Doodles was coloured with ProMarkers and the balloons covered in Glossy Accents. I don't really do well with white space but wanted to cut the lettering out on my Craft Robo and they would have been lost if i'd put them on a different background. I'm pleased with the finished look as it makes the cake pop.

Customised Baby Clothes

My friend Rachelle has recently given birth to a gorgeous baby girl who she's named Skye. I thought i'd be creative and customise some body suits using my Craft Robo and printable heat transfer material (soo easy to use just print, cut then iron). I brought her a little jacket and jeggings to create an outfit along with the cutest Tigger pyjamas. Skye is absolutely perfect and when I dropped round the clothes I got to have lots of cuddles - there's photos on Facebook :-)

Betty Boop Inspired Card

My Dad's partner asked me to make a card for her (buxom!) best friend who loves Betty Boop. I've seen this Kenny K image used on other blogs and thought it would be ideal so have coloured it to look like the friend. I've used a Cover-a-Card stamps to create the background then scored diagonally to make a luxurious quilt effect. The flowers are handmade using alternating layers of coloured cardstock cut with the Tattered Florals die from Tim Holtz and then sprayed with water before scrunching. The card candy, lace and pearl brads were all coloured with ProMarkers to match.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Craft Your Days Away - Challenge 28, Make Your Own Flowers
• Bearly Mine - Challenge 18, Flowers Flowers Flowers
• Craft Your Passion - Challenge 74, Anything Goes With Flowers
• Sweet Stamps - Challenge 31, Lace
• Card Makin' Mamas - Challenge 28, Digital

Beach Wedding Commission

My friend at work Marianne is off to Australia for three weeks to be a bridesmaid at her sister's wedding and someone mentioned my cards to her, so she asked if I could make a last minute wedding card. She wanted it to incorporate the beach as her sister and partner got engaged and will also be marrying on a one! I managed to finish it in time after an extremely late night and Marianne absolutely loved it (she reckons it will make her sister cry).







p.s. Spot the mistake! Luckily I noticed when I gave it to her so was able to fix the problem but this was after I took the photos :-(

My Custom Stamp

A couple of the lovely ladies that I follow have recently purchased custom rubber stamps from Whimsy Stamps and seeing how gorgeous they were I wanted to get one myself. After all, a bit of self promotion never hurts right? I've also updated my blog with a new signature and watermark which again were both custom designs from Whimsy (all matching)!

Fairy Stepper Card

My Mum's birthday was on the 1st August and I knew immediately that I wanted to use this image so coloured it in to match the paper, then had a complete lack of inspriation on how to construct the card! I wanted to try something completely new so decided to use a side stepper card, which perfectly displays the different layers i've cut out on my Craft Robo. Apparently the colours didn't match very well but i'm pleased with it...




Sorry I used a whole load of colours on this image and can't remember them all...



Supplies
Image - Woodland Fairy by Sugar Nellie
Colouring Medium - ProMarkers & Premier Prismacolor Pencils
Die - Classic Oval/Classic Scalloped Oval Nestabilities
Cardstock - 270 gsm coloured card from Lidl
Papers - Fantasy by Dovecraft
Glitter - Crystal Stickles
Ribbon - from The Range, coloured with ProMarkers
Card Candy - Craftwork Cards
Borders - cut out using my Craft Robo
Sentiment - Rub on (can't remember where from)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Craft Your Days Away - Challenge 26, Birthdays


• Card Makin Mamas - Challenge 26, Birthday Cards


• I Love ProMarkers - Challenge 77, Things With Wings

Pink Kraft Card

Right, my apologies as I said i'd post this card ages ago but have only just got around to finishing it! This wasn't made for any particular occasion but as an excuse to try out my Prismacolor pencils when I first brought them. I've used just black and white on Kraft card to create a charcoal effect - I got the idea from this blog. I probably shouldn't have used pink again but couldn't resist it for that gorgeous flower on her hat...







Supplies
Image - Madelyn from Greeting Farm
Colouring Medium - Premier Prismacolor Pencils
Die - Concentric Tag #1 by GoKreate
Cardstock - Bazzil Basics
Papers - Basics Kraft by Basic Grey
Background - Cover-a-Card Flourishes by Impression Obsession
Distressing - Snow Cap Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber by Ranger
Sentiment - Mixed Circular Sentiments by Lili of the Valley
Pink Roses - www.iamroses.com
White Roses/Buds - Wild Orchid Crafts
Pearls - Papermania used with Bazzill Jewel templates
Card Blank - cut out using my Craft Robo
Sorry I can't remember where the ribbon is from!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Delicious Doodles - Challenge 32, Flourishes and Bling


• Crafty Purple Frog - Swirls and Pearls

LOTV Colouring Masterclass

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to attend the Lili of the Valley Colouring Masterclass for ProMarkers/Copics with Bev Rochester and Jacqui Dennis. It was a great day - I learnt lots of new techniques to use with my ProMarkers and made some lovely new friends too. I also won 8 LOTV stamps in a raffle which they suprised us with! If i'm honest I was a bit scared of their stamps before as they're quite small and detailed but now I own loads :-)

From the class i've realised the card you use actually makes a huge difference and from now on i'll be using the Super Smooth card from Lili of the Valley/Craftwork Cards. Also Prismacolor pencils are magic and really make your image pop so i'm going to start playing with mine more. The main thing I learnt from the day though is to always colour dark to light as this means you keep your highlight.

Anyway here's the images we coloured during the day. We started off with a cute wintery James Bear, which i've now purchase to use on my Christmas cards lol. We practiced blending dark to light on his fur (Terracotta, Apricot, Saffron, Vanilla) and then used Prismacolor pencils to add depth.



Next up was this little boy with his sailing boat. We used this image to practice colouring skin (Apricot, Saffron, Ivory, Pastel Pink) and hair (Terracotta, Saffron, Vanilla). They also showed us how adding a touch of Putty and Almond to the sail adds a bit of dimension rather than leaving it plain white.



After lunch we coloured Love Grows which was quite tricky as there's lots of small areas and detail. To help simplify it though we stuck to only using a few colours (i.e. brown, red and green). We had the opportunity to turn this image into a card or colour another image, which is what I chose to do and then made the card at home last night instead.





Lastly I coloured the gorgeous Rosie Posy which required using the blender to fade the colours to white. Again i've used Prismacolor pencils to add depth. We were shown how to add rosy cheeks to our characters without making them look like clowns by adding small triangles of pink in line with the top of their ears.



I'm soo proud of how all these images have turned out and can't wait to start colouring some of my uninked stamps...

New Baby Boy Card

Unfortunately due to my boss leaving and me being promoted the last two months have been hectic so I haven't had any time to craft. Luckily it's all starting to calm down now and i've been on holiday this week so had lots of time to play! My mind is overflowing with ideas and i've started half a dozen cards so look out for those soon :-)

Anyway here's a commissioned card I made a while ago but haven't yet posted. It was cut out on my Craft Robo then embellished with Stickles, card candy and ribbon. Very quick to put together but I think it looks really effective!

Rainbow Cake

Unfortunately I haven't had much time to make cards recently but last weekend my brother asked me to make him a birthday cake. His friend was already making him a chocolate cake so I decided to go for something a bit different with a rainbow cake. Each layer was flavoured with different fresh fruit then coloured with concentrated die and cooked seperately (red = strawberry, orange = orange, yellow = lemon, green = kiwi, blue = blueberry, purple = grape).



The recipe was a based on the following links:

http://countryheartandhome.blogspot.com/2010/05/rainbow-cake-week-19.html
http://iammommy.typepad.com/i_am_baker/2010/04/mothers-day-garden-party.html
http://countryheartandhome.blogspot.com/2009/12/most-devine-cupcake-frosting-ever.html

Moles 60th Birthday Card

This is the third card i've made for my Mum's colleague - her surname is Moles so they have a running joke in her family where they try to find each other cards with moles on! It's actually a really difficult thing to incorporate into a card, so I decided to try a newspaper style this time. The idea came from the talented Helen over at It's All Fiddle Fart and I designed it using a tutorial from Caroline.



The mole was originally holding a heart so I photo-shopped a cupcake over the top and then decoupaged it. To finish it off I've added gems and star sequins to give it a bit of bling!

50th Birthday Survival Kit

My boss was 50 last month and we couldn't decide what to get him at work. I've seen these survival kits before so thought it would be the perfect funny present! It didn't cost very much together and went down really well (luckily he has a good sense of humour).



Here's what was included along with the reasons why:

• 50 pennies – contribution to retirement fund


• glasses - for when your eyesight goes


• duct tape - instant face lift


• incontinence pads – incase of any accidents


• memory mints – for those senior moments


• blue pills – for increased sex drive


• red tablets – to encourage hair regrowth


• lollipops - for when life sucks


• starburst candy - for an extra burst of energy


• paperclips - to hold things together


• mls of oil - to keep your joints lubricated


• marbles - spares for when you lose your own


• asprin - for those extra aches and pains


• notepad – to write things down before you forget


• first aid kit – for when you fall down


• baby food – to help you adjust to softer foods


• rubber bands - to give you your flexibility back


• batteries – for your hearing aid and pacemaker


• matchsticks – to help keep your eyes open

Commissioned Valentine's Card

My work colleague asked me to make a Valentine's card for his fiance and I was really touched so wanted to make it extra special. The only guidance he gave me was that it should be pink and cartoon type characters would be okay. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to use one of my cute squares from Lili of the Valley - the rest came together quite easily and I was really proud of the finished card. I really love this style and use Bev as my inspiration (check out the stunning cards on her blog).





The flowers wouldn't fit in a normal envelope so I made a matching box tied with pink satin ribbon for the card to be given in instead.



Supplies
Image - Love & Romance Cute Squares from Lili of the Valley
Papers - Madly In Love by Die Cuts With a View
Cardstock - Core'dinations
Sentiment - Stamp Calendars by Lili of the Valley
Ticket - Whimsy Shapeology Ticket Die & Ticket Sentiments Stamp Set
Punch - Lace Hearts by Martha Stewart
Roses - www.iamroses.com
Pearls - Nail Gems from Poundland
Ribbon - Pink Satin Ribbon from The Range
Card Blank - 148mm Square Scalloped Cards from Craftwork Cards


I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• The Crafty Pad - Challenge 109, Red, Pink and Black


• Scrappy Frogs Challenge - Love Is In The Air


• I Did It Creations - Challenge 43, Anything Goes


• Crafty Calendar - Challenge 17, Love


• Little Claire's - Challenge 1, Anything Goes


• Crazy 4 Challenges - C4C75, Use Dies


• Digi Doodle Shop - Challenge 47, Anything Goes


• Lili of the Valley - Challenge 84, Favourite Colours


• By The Cute & Girly Challenges - Red Is All Around Us


• Creative Cottage - Challenge 33, Fabulous Florals


• Craft Your Passion - Challenge 45, Pink

Secret Santa Swap

I know this is a bit late as Christmas was well over a month ago but we arranged a Secret Santa over on Crafty Place. Unfortunately it didn't quite go to plan and although I sent a present, I didn't receive one, so I was a bit disappointed. The lovely Melissa came to the rescue as we were in a three-way swap. She sent me all the goodies below, which was such a lovely and unexpected suprise to receive.



The best thing of all though was this absolutely stunning notebook which was included in the package. It's completely handmade by Melissa with a Bind It All and has loads of beautiful details. It really is special so I daren't use it and have currently propped it up on my craft shelves for inspiration...

Valentine's Gifts...

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't actually make my boyfriend a Valentine's card. Instead I made him a gecko friendship bracelet (he has two Leopard Geckos). I haven't made one of these for years and this one was particularly difficult with 19 strings! Lots of hours and two attempts later I finally had something to be pround of and he loved it.



Martin actually hand-made this card off his own back and I was really touched. He's fascinated when I craft and sometimes watches me so he's obviously been learning. Bless him, he had to cut all the decoupage out by hand as couldn't figure out the Craft Robo...

Paper Rosette Tutorial

Debbie (aka paddingtondoo) asked me how I made the rosette on my last card so I thought i'd put together a quick tutorial...

To make a rosette, you'll need a strip of paper just over 2cm wide by 25cm long (keep the offcut for later). You're also going to need a scoreboard, small circle punch approximately 2cm across and PVA glue.



Score the stip at 5mm intervals all the way along. If you have a Scorepal like me then I scored every 1cm then moved the paper 5mm to the right and again scored every 1cm.



Fold the strip along your score lines alternating the direction of each fold so that you end up with a zig zag shape (when looking from the side).



Apply PVA glue to a 5mm section at one end. You can also use double-sided tape if you don't want to wait for the glue to dry.



Overlap and stick the ends together to form a paper loop. If you've used PVA glue then I recommend holding the join to make sure it's stuck properly before you proceed to the next step.



Gather the loop at the top to form a cone and then gently push down in the centre to flatten out the rosette.



Punch or cut out two circles approximately 2cm in diameter in a co-ordinating colour to your rosette. This is where the offcut from earlier comes in handy!



Flip your rosette over and glue one of the circles to the centre with PVA glue or double sided tape. At this point you need to squeeze the edges of the rosette towards the centre to keep it tight.



Turn the rosette over and glue the other punched circle into the centre and you have your finished rosette:

Photo Light Tent

The natural light in our house is absolutely awful and I normally have to use flash when taking photos of my cards. I find this really washes the colours out and makes them look quite flat. Of course there's also the issue of glare from the flash, particulary with glitter, mirri card, etc.

Recently I brought a photo studio light tent kit from eBay for about £34, which came complete with light tent, tripod, two lights and four different coloured backgrounds. It's absolutley brilliant and is going to mean i'll be able to take much better quality photos (i'm also loving the black background as it looks really professional).

I used it to photograph my last card - what do you think?

Simply Sassy DT Card

As the title suggests this card was made for the Simply Sassy DT call, which actually ended on 29th January. When I came to enter my card though I realised I was too late and it had already closed :-( I was gutted so didn't bother posting my card and have only just got round to it. Anyway these stamps are stunning and an absolute pleasure to colour - I only own three but love them, especially their eyes! This card is very on trend with the bunting and rosette...





Supplies
Image - Simply Sassy Bella Bunting by Sugar Nellie
Papers - Tickled Pink by My Mind's Eye
Bunting - Friendly Flags by Hero Arts
Sentiment - Stamp Calendars by Lili of the Valley
Rosette - handmade using my Scorepal
Gems - Quixotic Paperie
Card Blank - 148mm Square Scalloped Cards from Craftwork Cards

ProMarker Colours
Skin - Apricot, Oatmeal, Blush, Ivory, Pale Pink
Hair - Black, Cool Grey 5, Cool Grey 4, Cool Grey 3
Outfit - Salmon Pink, Cocktail Pink, Soft Green