December elements

It’s the first Friday of the last month of 2020! First Friday always means an “elemental” challenge over at Daring Cardmakers - choose at least three elements from the inspiration picture to kick start your project.

I chose the mittens, a square, some of the colours and little scattered circles. The mittens are from a digital image and I wanted a matching pair (the two mittens in the original have different patterns on them) so before printing I copied and flipped the snowflake mitten to get the other hand. I pressed a Distress Oxide pad directly onto the card base to get a slightly “shabby” background square.

Stamps:
Mittens and Merriment  (digital stamp by Power Poppy)
Sparkle All the Way (Crafter’s Companion)

Paper:
Bristol board
Premium weight copy paper to print image

Ink:
Momento Luxe by Tsukineko (Love Letter)
Tim Holtz Distress Oxide by Ranger (Cracked Pistachio)

Other:
White Enamel Accents by Ranger
Copic markers
White Prismacolor pencil
White paint pen by Posca 

Here's our advent inspiration this month! Thanks for stopping by.

Say cheese!

Miri is setting our challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week and she's given us a "picture perfect" theme, so a camera, picture frame, polaroid layout or a real photo would all fit the bill.

I needed a card for a 50th wedding anniversary - this camera is pretty much exactly what a 1970 one would have looked like and one of the recipients worked in the family’s camera shop so this seemed just right for the job. I added the 50 by hand in the blank part of the image and stamped the anniversary sentiment on a second Polaroid cut out and stuck under the first.

Stamps:
Say Cheese (digi by Dr Digi)
Sentiment from a Waltzingmouse Stamps set (no longer with us)

Paper:
Copy paper (to print digi image)
Bristol board
DCWV textured

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Copic markers
Black fineliner 
Stitched square frames dies (Paper Rose Studio)
Fine Frames circle dies (Altenew)

Thanks for stopping by, hope you are keeping safe and well.

Mad March hare

It’s my turn to set the challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week and I’d like you to be inspired by the phrase “mad March hare”. Take a look at the DCM blog for some suggestions and to see what my lovely teamies made of it.

I found some fabulous downloadable colouring pages in this Etsy shop that’s run by a tattoo artist who has a beautiful illustration style - she has several animals and birds that would be perfect for the adult colouring craze and I think they’d be good for the kids too, maybe a family colouring session?!

I spent some happy time with my Copics and then just cropped the image to the size of the card front and added a simple die cut sentiment. I added some two-way glue to the moon with a Quickie glue pen and used metal flakes over it once tacky then added some more sketchy lines with a silver gel pen (that don't show up well on the photo, I'm afraid, maybe because the metal leaf is so reflective). The flower centres are dots of gold 3D paint.

I remember hearing a documentary about hares on Radio 4 that used Maddy Prior singing The Fabled Hare in its soundtrack. The final verse says

"I'm a symbol of endurance
Running through the mists of time"

I really hope that's true, hares are such magnificent creatures and with the recent news that a strain of myxomatosis has crossed from rabbits to hares, their future might not be quite so assured. 

Supplies:
Hare colouring page
Copic markers
Gold gel pen
Silver gel pen
Quickie glue pen
Mega Flake by Indigo Blu (Sheffield Steel)
Gold 3D paint
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

August Elements

It's the first Friday of a new month so that means an elemental challenge over at Daring Cardmakers. It's my turn to provide the inspiration picture this month - you'll find it at the end of this post if you haven't arrived from the DCM blog.

I chose lemon slice, raised and self-coloured writing (inspired by the tonic bottle), gold accents and bubbles.

I thought this would be a fun card for a G&T-drinking friend!

The lemon slice is from a bundle of vintage botanical images I got from a seller on Etsy. They'd be ideal for vintage work as they're "raw" scans from very old books so they have background colour but you can do some digital clean-up or get the scissors out and use them for collage etc. At under £4 for over 500 images I decided it was worth a punt!

I printed the slice and coloured it with Copic markers and a white paint pen, cut it out and popped it up slightly. Gold lines are done freehand with a glue pen and covered in MegaFlake once tacky. The gold "bubbles" are metal from a tomato paste tube, punched out with the two sides of my Crop-a-Dile. Rest the circles on some craft foam and dome with a stylus for cheap and cheerful embellishments!

Supplies:

Vintage printable (Botanicals from Etsy seller)
Happy Stamp & Cut and part sentiment from Essential Messages (Hero Arts)
Copic markers
White paint pen by Posca
Wink of Stella pen (clear)
Metal from tomato paste tube
Flitter Glu and Chariot of Fire Mega Flake (Indigo Blu)
Sakura Quickie glue pen
Pinflair glue gel
Corner Chomper

Here's our inspiration picture this month.

Thanks for stopping by!

Harvest Home

Another Friday, another challenge from Daring Cardmakers. Shabneez is setting this week's theme and she'd like to see fruit, vegetables or grain on our projects as it's harvest time.

I'm easing myself back in to crafting after a couple of weeks' holiday. I'm never quite satisfied with the first thing I make after a break from my crafty stash but doing a bit of colouring was relaxing so I'll just settle for "hmm, that's OK".

I've combined digi and rubber here and pulled out the kraft cardstock for a rustic base with a bit of scuffing, tearing and wonky piercing done with a tracing wheel.

The kraft means it fits this month's challenge at Power Poppy, too.

Stamps:
Fall Haul digi by Power Poppy
Vintage Flourish by Indigo Blu
Sentiment from old CHF set

Paper: kraft

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tea Dye)

Other:
Coloured pencils (Prisma and Coloursoft)
White Posca pen
Tracing wheel 

Many faith and community groups use their harvest collections these days to boost their local food bank - do consider dropping something off if you possibly can, it will be hugely appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by!

Fast Frankie!

Our challenge today at Daring Cardmakers is "Fast food and coffee to go".

I reckon pizza is perfect food for a party and so this happened!

Fast Food Frankie is a digital image. I printed him on Neenah cardstock (because that will go through my printer OK!)  coloured with Copics, cut out and stuck onto an inky background on a DL card. I went dark with the blues to make it look like perhaps night is falling and Frankie is keen to find the party before it's too late!

I'm not sure whether he's pulling a wheelie because he's setting off at speed or whether the weight of all those pizzas is to blame!

Supplies:
Fast Food Frankie by Dr Digi - printed on a laser printer
Neenah cardstock
Copic markers
Posca white paint pen
Tim Holtz Distress inks (Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch, Chipped Sapphire)
Triple Thick glaze by DecoArt (on his goggles)
Typeset strip die by Tim Holtz/Sizzix
Fineline black marker
Nail art gems
Pinglair glue gel

Thanks for stopping by!

April: showers and flowers!

Kathy is setting our challenge over at Daring Cardmakers today and she'd like us to celebrate the season by breaking out the spring flowers!

Hellebores are one of the earliest spring flowers and are probably about over by now but I've been eyeing up this image for ages and decided this challenge gave me a good reason to just go ahead and get it! I'm not much of a digital fan in general, I like my crafting to be time away from the computer but every now and again I give in to a lovely image! Since I just printed and then took it to my craft table it didn't feel much different to stamping and colouring in any case.

I printed on kraft and accidentally ended up doing "no line colouring" because the toner didn't fuse properly on the cardstock and mostly rubbed off as I worked. I'd done a test print card on ordinary paper first so I had a strong line image to refer to, though.

I decided to do a super-simple one layer card and just let the image speak for itself.

Supplies:
Hellebores digital stamp by Power Poppy
Sentiment from Big Day Today stamp set (Waltingmouse stamps, no longer with us)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)
Kraft cardstock
Coloured pencils
Corner Chomper

Have a lovely Easter weekend!

I want more...

It's dare day over at DCM and Miri is asking us what we'd like more of this year.

I count myself extremely fortunate to have what I have and struggled a bit with this challenge - all the things that popped into my head were pretty esoteric. In the end I decided to run with that and go for something more symbolic than concrete.


A while ago I was looking for a decent olive stamp. I remembered that on that hunt I saw a digital image that combines olive and oak. Since an olive branch symbolises peace and oak is traditionally associated with wisdom and strength I thought it would be a good representation of things we could use more of in the world right now.

I used Copic markers (cool and warm greys plus black) to colour the image then surrounded it with some charcoal pencil. I almost left it just like that but ultimately decided this die cut word was simple enough not to detract from the overall feel.

Supplies:
Olive and oak digital image (Power Poppy)
Copic markers (Warm Grey 1 and 3, Cool Grey 1, 3 and 5, Special Black)
Serenity word die set (Sizzix, retired)
Charcoal pencil
Corner chomper

Thanks for stopping by!