Christmas Elegance ....

... Good morning all, and welcome to this week's 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown challenge.  This week we have a colour challenge for you - to use Black, Metallic Gold and White!

I made a couple of card - both with baubles.  Here's the first card:

Stamps: Stampin' Up! - Ornament Keepsakes; My Favourite Things - Seasonal Sentiments
Inks: Staz-on - Jet Black; Memento - Tuxedo Black; Versamark
Dies: SU - Holiday Ornaments Frames
Accessories: SU Card - Basic Black; Gold Linen texture card from stash; Anita's - White DL Card; Peeloffs from stash; Gold embossing powder

I used the layout from this week's Freshly Made Sketches - FMS76 challenge, changing the squares to ornaments!  I used the very elegant long ornament to make three ornaments - black on white, black on gold and gold on white, then used the coordinating dies to cut them out.  I cut a panel of black card and edged it with gold.  I have a vast collection of peeloff stickers and found this long sentiment - just perfect to go along the bottom edge.  I kept the inside of the card very CAS with a black and white layers, stamping the greeting in black and adding a couple of small gold peeloffs.

I was having such fun with these colours that I made another card!

Stamps: SU - Ornament Keepsakes; Waltzingmouse Stamps - Nordic Winter; My Favourite Things - Seasonal Sentiments
Inks: Stazon - Jet Black; Memento - Tuxedo Black
Dies: Spellbinders - Fleur de Lis Squares (S4-318) #4, Squares Lg (S4-126) #6; SU - Holiday Ornament Frames
Accessories:  Pink Petticoat - Little Swirls digi paper; Black Gloss Card; Gold Ribbon, White Lustre card

While going through my black and gold card I found this lovely old gold paper with swirl pattern; it's an old Pink Petticoat digi paper - I simply printed it on Conqueror Metallic Gold paper.  I thought it was just right to go with the elegant flourish pattern in the ornament.  I covered the card base with the gold paper, cut the ornate frame from black gloss card and layered it with white card onto which I stamped the sentiment.  I attached the bauble with some dimensional gel and added a gold ribbon.  For the inside, I cut a square of the swirly gold paper and some white card and stamped a clean and bold sentiment.

Don't forget to visit the rest of the team - they have some wonderful cards to share with you.  Looking forward to seeing your designs with this week's colours.

That's all for now - I hope you have a super weekend planned.  I'm attending a photography class today to learn how to use studio lights and natural light to get a better picture.  I'm really looking forward to it.  And after we are all off to see "Oz the Great and Powerful" - the trailers look spectacular.  I'll give you a review later.  Have a great weekend!

Blue birds ....

.... I'm running quite close to deadline with my submission for this week's Less is More - LIM89 challenge.  The Diva ladies, Chrissie and Mandi, want us to make a one layer card with the theme wings.  I had lots of ideas but just couldn't get anything to work until I saw the sketch for this week's CAS(E) this Sketch! - CTS2 challenge.  This is a tiny card, only 7½ × 10½ cm, but perfect for the size of the stamps.

Stamps:  Pink Petticoat - set free with Simply Cards & Papercraft
Inks: Memento - Tuxedo Black
Accessories:  Promarkers - various; Card from stash

This was really quick and easy to make.  I stamped the image directly on the card base and coloured with Promarkers.  I finished with the simple, but heartfelt sentiment.  I think I'll keep this cared in my stash for when I need it.

That's all for now.  See you soon.

St Luke's Charity Card Challenge .....

..... It seems you weren't much inspired by our Sports/Olympic theme challenge last month, but hopefully this month's challenge at St Luke's Charity Card Challenge will encourage some more of you to play along.  What is the theme?  Oh yes, it's:

COUPLES

You are free to interpret this a you would like - human, animal, fun, formal, romantic or not!  The choice is yours - but we do want to see two together!  I've gone for a fishy, fun take for my card - but it's romantic at heart!!

Stamps:  Pink Petticoat - Fish Free with Papercraft Essentials; Waltzingmouse - Half Pint Heroes, Fancy Phrases, Compact Family
Inks:  Distress - Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Faded Jeans, Salty Ocean, Mowed Lawn, Picked Raspberry; Memento - Tuxedo Black
Accessories:  Promarkers - various; Card from stash

This is a little card 3" x 4¼" - just right to show off these sweet fishes!!  I started off by making the ocean background, blending various shades of blue distress inks.  Then I splashed on drops of water - distress inks react with water creating this lovely blotchy effect.  To create the illusion of depth I randomly stamped seaweed and fish in the ocean.  I used my stamp-a-ma-jig to position the sentiment and the two big fish.  I also stamped the big fish onto white card and coloured them with promarkers and then carefully cut out the various layers.  Those hearts are tiny, tiny!!  A fun card for a couple - could be for an anniversary, a wedding or just because!

For more inspirational couple cards check out St Luke's Blog or click on the links below:

Tara Cardwell

Jenny Mullens

Anne Forrest

Sylvie Colledge

Lynne Atkinson

We have a two prizes sweet prizes for you this month - stamps from Lili of the Valley - they're very cute:

Looking forward to seeing your cards.

In threes ....

... Good morning all - it's going to be another brilliantly sunny and very hot day here in Northville.  It's only just after 9.00am and it's already 26C (79F)!!!  I've made a couple of card for this week's Less is More - LIM76 challenge.  It's the one layer week and Chrissie and Mandi would like us to use three of anything on our card.  I've made two small cards (UK A7 - USA 2 15/16 x 4 1/8).

The first card is a thank you card; I've used one stamp and three shades of pink - it's really clean and simple.

Stamps: Stampin' Up! - Cute by the Inch (hostess set)
Inks: Memento - Angel Pink, Rose Bud, Love Letter
Accessories: Card from stash

I played a bit more with my second card.  I stamped this sweet sunflower in a vase three times and coloured the images with Promarkers.  I added some bling to the centre of the middle flower and finished off with a simple sentiment.

Stamps: Pink Petticoat - free with Simply Cards & Papercraft
Inks: Memento - Tuxedo Black
Accessories:  Promarkers; Gems and card from stash

I am submitting the second card to this week's One Layer Wednesday - OLW96 which is being hosted by Susan at Simplicity.  I really should read instructions properly too - Susan wants Birthday cards with Bling - mine is simply for my Mum, because I love her!

That's all for now - see you soon.

St Luke's Charity Card Challenge - Furry Friends ...

.... It's the 1st of June well, for me, it's actually late evening of 31st May, but wherever you are in the world, it's time for our new challenge at St Luke's Charity Card Challenge.

This month we've got a super cute theme - we'd like you to make a card featuring our furry friends - dogs, cats, rabbits, gerbils, teddies, etc - your choice!  You can use papers, charms, stamps or even some photos of your furry friends.  I've actually made two cards!!!

My first card features a cute bunny and punny sentiment. the colours are this week's Colour Q - cQc139 colours.  I used a Pink Petticoat bunny image that I got in one of the UK card magazines - I cut it out with my trusty Spellbinder dies and coloured it with Promarkers.  I cut around the outside of the die to make a mat with a thin border.  The background stamping was inspired by a piece of Pink Petticoat paper (see photo at the end of the post) which wasn't quite a match to the Colour Q colours, so I adapted it and made my own.

Stamps:  Stampin' Up! - Seeing Stars (discontinued); Pink Petticoat - Bunny image free with UK magazine
Inks: Stampin' Up! - Rich Razzleberry, Night of Navy, Crumb Cake, Bashful Blue
Spellbinders: Large Labels (S4-168)
Accessories:  Promarkers - Khaki, Pastel Beige, Powder Blue, Cornflower, Warm Grey 1; Card from stash

My second card features Tatty Ted - he's a real cutie.  I've used three other challenges to make the card:

• Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge - WMSC99 - sketch by Lynn Mercurio
• Play Date Cafe Challenge - PDCC134
• Charima Cardz - Use some bling

I turned the sketch on end to make my card.  I stamped Tatty Ted onto white card, cut him out with my nestie and added some shading around the edge.  I didn't add any more colour to the image as it's so detailed already.  I simply coloured his patches yellow.  I made the border by stamping the tiny gingham check onto white card, cutting it out and using a Martha Stewart punch to create the scallop effect.  I stamped the dotty pattern onto white card and cut out a fancy circle.  I attached all the elements to the card and finished off by stamping the sentiment directly onto the card and added some bling for good measure!

Stamps: Carte Blanche - Tatty Ted (free with magazine); Waltzingmouse - Gingham & Co, Compact Sentiments II
Inks: Memento - Toffee Crunch, Love Letter; Distress - Tattered Rose; Stampin' Up! - Daffodil Delight
Spellbinders: Crown Circles (S4-302) # 2, Rectangles Sm (S4-130) #5
Accessories:  Martha Stewart border punch; Gems and card from stash

The rest of the team have also made some cards to share with you - either check out the blog or click on the links below:

Tara Cardwell

Jenny Mullens

Anne Forrest

Sylvie Colledge

Lynne Atkinson

We have a prize for the lucky winner this month - some stamps from Waltzingmouse Stamps - Text-it.  This is a really useful set with text in a variety of fonts.

I look forward to seeing your cards.  Here are the graphics from the challenges I used this week:

And the inspiration Pink Petticoat paper - love the stars!!

See you soon.

Jest for the pun of it .....

.... I like this title - I've borrowed, or should that be nicked, it from CAS-ual Fridays - CFC41.  The team would like us to make a card and use a pun or a sentiment in a silly way to make a joke.

This one was quick and fun to make.  I knew just which stamps to use and I've gone for a cute pun!  It's a little card, 4" × 4", and has a lightly textured finish.  I stamped my image onto plain white card, cut out it out with one of my new (and under used) nesties, added some colour with distress inks.  Then I stamped the image again three times and coloured it with Promarkers, carefully cut out the sections and layered them onto the main image.  I added some sparkle to the wings and a simple sentiment "bee mine"!

Stamps:  Pink Petticoat Stamps free with Papercraft Essentials; Waltzingmouse - L'il Buddies
Inks:  Memento - Tuxedo Black; Distress - Bundled Sage, Tumbled Glass, Faded Jeans
Spellbinders: Labels Twenty-two (S4-346) # 3
Accessories: A variety of Promarkers to colour the image and edge the die cut; glitter for the wings

Here's a close up photo of the image - you can really see the sparkle on the bee's wings!  She's really cute.  I'm not sure who this card is going to be for - it may simply be one that goes into my stash - for whenever I need a card like this.  I may give it to Jonathan when we get to the States!!

I've enjoyed this challenge - and I think I might have another go later in the week - provided I can find a spare hour to play.  Kathryn and her friends had a very good evening last night!  I checked on them at 10.00pm and suggested that it was time to sleep, and I checked again at just after 11.30pm - still not asleep!  Why do they call it a "sleepover"?  The kids don't sleep!!  But they've had fun and we continue at the movies later today!  Now I'm off to check out what Less is More and Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge have in store for us this week!  See you soon.

CR84FN47 - Thank you ....

.... It's the second week of our CR84FN47 challenge - these colours are so pretty and we've already had nearly 60 submissions.  I can understand why - the colours are just fab!  The inspiration photos are super, courtesy of Magnolia Rouge, so why did I have such a hard time coming up with my second card?

I was beginning to think that I wouldn't have a card to share with you this week - nothing I tried seemed to work.  So I decided to miss a week, then late Friday night I suddenly remembered some pretty papers that I had that would fit with our colours.  Now, I'm not terribly good using designer papers, most of my cards tend to have  papers that I've made with stamps.  I'm determined that this year I'll use up some of my huge collection of papers.

I kept the design really simple as the papers really are lovely.  I simply cut a couple of sheets to size and matted them onto red card.  The rose paper has a sort of green tint here - but it really is pale blue!  To make the topper I cut two of the accent shapes from Parisian Motifs and layered them to make this pretty flower.  To finish off I simply added the thank you sentiment.  This card was so quick to make - took me 15 minutes!!

Papers:  Pink Petticoat - Vintage Rose Collection (free with Quick Cards Made Easy)
Spellbinders:  Parisian Motifs (S5-035)
Accessories:  Card from stash

Edited:  I have to apologise for the photo - it make the pale blue background appear pale green!  I have used blue - honest!!!  I'll try for a better photo today - very much depends on the weather.


I've managed to get a better photo - and in this one I think you can see the pale blue background so much better!  

Monika, our Guest Designer, and some of the Design team have more cards to share with you this week - check out the CR84FN Blog.

We had a fantastic time at Helen's party last night - she had no idea that it was happening!!  Jonathan and I had a super time on the dance floor dancing to Come on Eileen, Tiger Feet and lots of old stuff!  Kathryn sat there with her head in her hands!  Don't you just love embarrassing your kids?   Helen's birthday cake was fabulous - also themed for Guiding - it had a tent and flag pole with Helen's initial.  Wish I'd had my camera!

I must also say thanks for the lovely comments on Kathryn's card - she'll be thrilled!  As for the various chargers we discovered - I don't think we have any idea what they are for, but we're bound to work it out once they've gone!

That's all for now - have a super day.  See you soon.

Pretty in pink ....

...  I hope you've all had a good week and are looking forward to a great weekend.  I've got one card to share with you now, but I've been busy - so do pop back again, I've got a couple more coming soon.

The first card has been made for three challenges - the layout from this week's Mojo Monday - MOJO223 and I've used the colours from the inspiration photo over at The Ribbon Reel Challenge - RR19.  The Ribbon Reel team would like us to make a card featuring polka dots, pink and, of course, some ribbon or twine.  It so happens that  DYSU#54 also has a colour challenge this week - the team would like us to use pink!  Yea!!

I've made a birthday card - not for anyone in particular, just one to go into my stash.  As the colours are pink, I've made a really girly card!  I have some wonderful papers and images from Pink Petticoat all on DVDs; but I tend to forget about them.  I decided to fix that with this card.  I printed the pretty rose and dot paper onto satin photo card for the background.  The image is also by Pink Petticoat - it's Lola Rose and she's celebrating; I used a mixture of pencils and pens to colour the image.  I stamped some pink polka dots onto white card, mounting this and the image onto black mirri card.  The circle accents are made from coordinating paper coloured with Promarkers and a printed birthday greeting.  Finally, I stamped a pretty butterfly and attached that to the bottom panel.

Stamps:  Waltzingmouse - Off Beat Backgrounds; Loving Life Collection - free with Simply Homemade (butterfly)
Inks:  Stampin' Up! - Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink
Spellbinders:  Lacey Circles (S4-293) #2, Standard Rectangles Sm (S4-130) # 4 & 5
Accessories:  Pink Petticoat - Lola Rose Image, Blooming Doodles Orchid; Ribbon, birthday greeting and card from stash

That's all for now.  We're off to Chester this morning for some girly time and some shopping!  I'll be back later - see you then.

Cocktail time ....

.... it's happy hour over at Less is More - LIM37 - this week.  Chrissie and Mandi have given us the theme of COCKTAILS for this week's card - now we can interpret that as we like - be literal, take the colours of cocktails as the inspiration for your card or run with your imagination!

I did try to be creative and run with my imagination, but with all the decorating and tidying going on in my house at the moment, my mojo is a bit thin on the ground.  So I decided to go with a literal take on the challenge and I've made a birthday card.

I printed Lola Rose onto directly onto my card and then cut her out using my nesties.  I added some colour with distress inks and layered the image onto gold holographic card - which, amazingly, shows up really well in this photo!!!  I cut the sentiment out with my banner nestie and again layered onto holographic card.  I printed a second image of Lola Rose and coloured her clothes and bag using Promarkers, cut them out and attached them to the main image.  Finally, for a bit of glamour, I added some feathers behind the sentiment and a large cocktail to toast the birthday girl!

Image:  Pink Petticoat - Lola Rose (discontinued)
Spellbinders:  Wonky Rectangles (S4-306) # 6, Nested Lacey Pennants (S5-029)
Promarkers:  Denim Blue, Midnight Blue, Cerise, Pale Pink, Satin, Bright Green
Accessories:  Feathers, card and glitter from stash

Here's a close up of the sentiment - it's fun!

Today the decorators are painting my kitchen and family room - which means I can't get in there to do the ironing - great excuse not to do it!!  Later today I'm off to the school Harvest Festival - Year 5 (Kathryn's class) lead the service - so I think there may be a proud mum moment later today!! 

Finally, I decided to have a play with the cocktail personality quiz that Chrissie and Mandi shared with us - here's what it says today:

You Are Made Of Intuition, Compassion, and Brilliance

3 parts Intuition
2 parts Compassion
1 part Brilliance

And a Splash of Style

Serve over ice  

I like that one!  That's all for now.

A three in one card ...

...   CAS-ual Fridays - CFC20 have a super challenge this week - they want us to make mini clean and simple cards - well no bigger than 4" × 4".  I like smaller cards - so I made another today - this time I've gone with a Christmas theme using a digi image - which is the challenge at Jingle Belles - JB38.  And as it's reasonably clean and simple in design - I'm entering into the Less is More - LIM33 - Anything Goes Aim for 1,000 challenge.

My card is a 4" × 4" square - it's slightly creamy in colour and has a very subtle texture to it.  The image is from Pink Petticoat and I have had it for ages and ages - but I tend to forget about them.  So the Jingle Belles challenge was a good way to make me check out what I had.  I printed three images the same size.  I cut one out using my nesties and added colour with distress inks.  I used a gold marker pen around the edge to give a thin gold border.  I colour the cupcake case with a promarker and then cut out the frosting layer and added lots of glitter.  I also did a fussy cut on the holly leaves and berries - not easy - and coloured them with Sakura glaze pens.  I'm really pleased with this - nice to use the digi image too!

Image:  Pink Petticoat
Spellbinders:  Big Scalloped Ovals Lg (S-251) #4
Inks: Distress - Antique Linen
Accessories: Sakura glaze pens - red and green; crystal glitter, gold pen, card

It's turned out to be a lovely day here - the sun is shining and it's quite warm - so nice!!  See you later!

Busy ....

... hi - finally made it into my craft room about an hour ago.  It's been a fantastic weekend - Kathryn's party went off brilliantly.  I do have lots of photos to share - and I'll get them up later this week. 

I've got a card to share that covers three challenges:

• The Play Date Cafe Challenge - PDCC99 - colour
• CAS-ual Fridays - CFC20 - make a mini card, no larger than 4" × 4"
• Less is More - LIM33 - 1000 challenge - any theme you like so long as it's CAS

Chrissie and Mandi at Less Is More - have got more the 1000 followers and reached that number really quite quickly.  One of the LIMettes suggested that if we all entered a card to the challenge that Blogger might break!!!  So the challenge is to reach 1,000 submissions for this week's anything goes theme.  At the time of preparing this post - the are 324 entries - so a third of the way there!!  I hope to make another two or three cards for LIM33. 

This card was really quick to make - that's simply because the image is one that I printed out earlier this year.  The sweet flowers are from Pink Petticoat - who make some of the loveliest digi-images.  This one is an outline image and I simply coloured it in using Paint - pretty yellow flowers - bright and cheerful!  I had a rummage through my card stash and found this lovely pale lilac pearlescent card and used the gorgeous Fleur de Lis nestie to cut out a mat.  Simple, quick, easy - and very pretty!  The finished card measures 4" × 4".

Image:  Pink Petticoat (coloured on the computer in Paint)
Spellbinders: Fleur de Lis Squares (S4-318) #3
Accessories:  Card from stash

That's all for now - off to get Kathryn ready for her dance class.  We are now back to the normal routine of school, after school clubs and work - sort of nice too!!  See you later.