Happy New Year!

Woohoo, Happy 2010 folks :)

I've started the new year off with a bang and I've made a card already....yippee.

This card fulfils the challenges as below

• The Pink Elephant #47 - Choice of 2 sketches
• Cards for Men #2 - Use the theme 'New'
• Little Paper Shop #48 - Colours of light blue, Navy and silver
• 365 Cards Day 188 - Use a flock texture
• Fussy & Fancy Friday Challenge #1 - New
• Daring Cardmakers - New beginnings
• Paperplay #46 - New Beginnings
• 3 Clovers Thursday #45 - Celebration
• Cupcake Craft Challenge #71 - Celebration
• Charisma Cardz - Celebration
• Secret Crafter #64 - New Beginnings
• Rosie Dee's #61 - Open Theme
• Creative card Crew #41 - Anything Goes
• My Time To Craft #72 - Anything Goes
• By The Cute & Girly - New
• Rainbow Lady's Challenge #84 - New

The base card is a metallic silver and I have cut a mat in a navy blue sparkle cardstock. The papers are from Heidi Swapp and it is the first time I have brought myself to cut into it. The birdie ribbon in the centre was cut from a flocked sheet, it feels lovely just like Fuzzy Felt when I was a kid :) The circular pram is a cardstock sticker with the addition of a birdie rub-on. This is matted onto more of the navy card and mounted on 3D foam. The sentiment are stickers from a co-ordinated sticker set.

I've gone off the boil in combining challenges for the last few months and I'm going to try and make a concerted effort to do more challenges again. I really enjoyed doing this for some months last year and I felt it gave me more focus in making cards for specific reasons. I start level 2 of my college course next week so hopefully I'll be able to fit more crafting into my schedule and be more disciplined with myself instead of vegging out in front of the TV when I'm tired.

365 Cards Day 139

OMG, I've made another Christmas Card !!!

Dustin Pike is sponsoring the challenge at Stamp Something this week and I have only recently become aware of his digi stamp designs. He has such a sense of humour in them and I really like them. He is also extremely generous in that he gives away a freebie on his blog every Wednesday. This little gingerbread chef is the freebie for 15th July. I was inspired to make a card using it as I wanted to use the little shrink plastic gingerbread men that I made last year. See, she is such a good cook that she has a little cookie already made.

The following challenges have been included in this card :)

• 365 Cards Day 139 - Use paper piercing to create a pattern on your card
• Stamp Something Sketch - layout of the card
• If The Shoe Fits - Colour Challenges of Red, Brown and cream
• 3 Clovers Thursday #22 - Christmas in July (2nd entry)
• Cute Card Thursday #69 - Xmas in July (2nd entry)

I started off with a red textured card blank from DCVW. I added a square of cream textured card from my scrap box, edging both layers with a brown ink pad. The red card is a glittered design from a DCWV Christmas Mat stack. I used a pokey tool to pierce around the trellis design. The brown and red text paper is from a magazine freebie some time ago.

The digi image was printed out twice so I could decoupage the chefs hat, the wooden spoon and the dress. These have been raised on 3d foam. I pierced a star design in the corners and matted onto dark brown card. The shrink plastic gingerbread man was cut using a Sizzix die and coloured using felt tipped pens. The black detailing is a fine tipped permanent marker.

I just love the little image as it goes so well with my gingerbread man - almost like they were meant to be together all along. Not bad considering I made them so long ago :) I still have about 15 of them left so I'm sure they will feature in some more cards in the future.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed as I may win 3 free Dustin Pike images if I am lucky enough!

My 1st Christmas Card !!!

In a very unusual step for me I have made a Christmas Card! OMG....

I usually have good intentions of making them early, buy the stuff but invariably I don't end up actually making them until the last minute. I purposely didn't put my Christmas items at the top of the bookcase this year as I wanted to make them during the course of the year. Whether this is a fluke or not remains to be seen. Of course it has been helped that a lot of the challenges this week have a Christmas in July theme :)

The following challenges have been incorporated into this card :-

• 365 Cards Day 111 - Bold colours & stripes
• Just Christmas & Birthday Cards - Sketch for layout
• Winter Wonderland #7 - Christmas Present
• 3 Clovers Thursday #22 - Christmas in July
• Cute Card Thursday #69 - Xmas in July
• If the Shoe Fits - Christmas card

I started out by choosing the circular motifs for the card. I have a box of assorted items that have been cut from recyled shop bought christmas cards. Quite often there are lovely designs or even just the sentiments can be re-used, good for the environment and great for the crafty pocket :)

As the dominant colour was red I decided to use this as the colour for the Nestabilities scalloped mats. The papers are from DCWV stacks. The sentiment is a cardstock sticker from a DCWV drawer set from QVC which was matted onto a scrap of black card. These elements have been popped on 3d foam. The gems are from Paperchase.

The bright colours and stripes have also enabled me to cross one of the older 365 cards challenges off my to do list so that was a nice bonus. Only 45 more to go......

365 Day 71 & TPE #17 & MTTC #64, 3 Clovers & If The Shoe Fits

Paul's Dad is an avid golfer and is very lucky to be able to go on holiday frequently and golf around the world. He is going to Spain in a week and will be away for Father's Day so I've made his card early as I'll need to give it him on Saturday.

I have used and older sketch from Day 71's challenge at 365 Cards and I hope I have been able to fit it in with this week's recipe challenge #17 over at The Pink Elephant.

I have used a digital image of Jim Playing Golf from Digistamp Boutique. I have paper pieced his hat, smock and shoes in the same K & Co backing paper. The brown scalloped edge strip was handcut using a Fiskars border template from a scrap of card. The image was coloured using water colour pencils and Marvy le Plume pens. The sentiment is from a Lets Make Cards pack layered onto a scrap of the paper. The golf ball button is from my stash and the other 2 are from Papermania. I have entered this card into the Father's Day challenge #64 at My Time To Craft

He never says anything about my cards so I'm not sure if he likes them or not, but at least I know I've made a nice card fro him even if he doesn't appreciate it. Paul likes it and that's what matters to me the most.

I have also entered this card into 2 other challenge blogs that I have become aware of thanks to Vickilyn a fellow 365'er. 3 Clovers Thursday has a challenge this week to make a card for Dad (or a man) and If the Shoe Fits....Scrap It! has a Wednesday card challenge to make a card for Father's Day. Both blogs look interesting with lots of challenges and I've added them to my ever growing list. I think before I concentrated more on just sketch blogs but there are so many other challenges to help stretch my creativity. I think my cards have definitely improved as a result of this.