Sugar Bowl challenge

Here is my entry for the Sugar Bowl challenge where you have to use Lia's sketch and have the option to use blue and green to be entered into the draw for the prize. This is my first Leanne Ellis stamp, I got it in my lucky bag, I love it! I needed to make a New Home card and decided I could get away with using this as she is wishing them good luck with her star...tentative link I know but I like it! The sketch had lots of layered elements, it was really great to do. Instead of doing them all in paper though I have chosen to do some of them with ribbon and the circle with my grunge stamp from stempelglede because I just can't put it down I love it so much LOL and I think it looks really gorgeous like this, I stamped it in peeled paint distress ink which is the same colour I distressed all my edges with.

A close up of the image. I added clear glitter glue to the star and I have written New Home myself with a silver pen.

The flower is three prima flowers and a hand punched one on top with EK retro punch, I added a pinky red brad as her boots are coloured pinky red too as the whole thing was in danger of becoming too green LOL and it picks up the red in one of the papers. I have twirled green metallic wire around the flower and image and added a star gem to tie in with the image.

The inside I have kept fairly simple, I have stamped the image in peeled paint distress ink and distressed the edges with it too and added glitter glue to the star. The sentiment says "wishing you good luck in your new home", again written in silver pen. The wierdest thing happened when I was making this card. I have some Forever Friends stickers from when I first started before I discovered stamps and haven't used them since March appart from the anniversary card commission last week. I was putting the finishing touches to the outside and reached for my gem box and one four leaf clover sticker fell onto the table, it must have been static to the box. I forgot I'd got them and they fit perfectly with the green and blue theme and the good luck message....spooky eh?! so anyway, that is how come there are now three of them inside!

Image: Catch a falling star, Sugar Nellie coloured with copics

Papers: Coredinations card stock, basic grey euphoria collection

Wire and star: from stash

Ribbons: from stash

Other tools: Peeled paint distress ink pad, Stempelglede grunge circle, silver pen, Forever friends four leaf clover stickers

Just Magnolia challenge - animals and/or insects

Well its still super gorgeous weather here, its glorious!! It seems to be very quiet here in blog land the past week. I don't know if it is because of this annoying error message I''m getting and I presume others are too. I am truly fed up of it and am extremely tempted to change to another blog host, it is taking me so many attempts to view my blog then if I want to look at any messages it takes another load of attempts. Anyway....here is my entry for the Just Magnolia challenge to have animals or insects on your cards. As you can see I have butterflies on mine! I just love butterflies so much. I have made this to give to my friend's little girl for her 4th birthday so it is very girly and covered in flowers and sparkley bits! The tulips I'm loving....my Mum bought me a set she found half price somewhere and there were four tulip buttons in it but to be honest they were very cheap plasticy looking things but I loved the shape so thought I'd cover them in pearlescent glue and now I love them! I wanted her to look like she was stood in a field of flowers.

close up of the tulip button. I've used all sorts for the flower centres, some brads, liquid pearls and some have fluffy pom poms!

The card when it is stood...you can see the flowers inside too so it looks like she is surrounded by flowers!

and this is the inside...

Image: Butterfly Tilda and butterflies from Magnolia coloured with copics

Papers: Coredinations cardstock, Prima Phoebe Angel Island

Flowers: Prima, and from stash

Brads & gems: from stash

Sugar Bowl challenge

This is my entry for the sugar bowl challenge to Kathy's gorgeous sketch. To be in with a chance of winning the fantastic prize of 6 Sugar Nellie stamps you had to also use pearls on your card.

I remembered two of my other hobbies that I haven't really touched for years to help me with this card: one was calligraphy, I used to love doing this as a teenager and managed to hunt out my old pen and a cartridge; the other was sugar flower making.....only with paper! I have made the paper rose myself in the exact same way you make a rose from sugar paste LOL!! I'm really pleased with how it turned out so expect lots more of these! Also the stamens in the centres of the Prima flowers are the ones you get to make sugar flowers with, I think I've had them 9 years because I'm sure I used them in the sugar flowers on my wedding cake! You might notice my wash tablet net bags in action again....this time brown and I decided to cut some parts out to make it look more lacey but unfortunately I've covered most of it with the other papers!

a close up of my rose made in the same was as a sugarpaste rose but with crumpled paper!

a close up of the sentiment. I masked off a Whiff of Joy sentiment that says "thanks for being you" so that I just got the thank and the you! Took a few attempts but got there in the end.

a close up of the gorjuss girl. Don't know if you've ever done something and then when you look at it you can't believe you've done it? this is me with this image I can't belive I've coloured it, I'm so pleased how the hair and wings turned out!

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this stamp...I do think its beautiful but on the other hand it has always seemed kind of creepy to me too but then a few weeks ago I came across a saying "children are born with wings, teachers help them to fly" and so this gave me the idea to use this image and make a thank you card for my little boy's teacher to give at the end of term.....what do you think? does this image work with the saying? too late now anyway LOL.

I added my pearls on some wire in place of the corner cutouts on the original sketch...I have used this pearls on wire thing three times now, I just love how it looks! Gosh sorry, look how I've rattled on!

The inside is decorated with the same image as the front and the saying written with my trusty old calligraphy pen. I have also used three different stamps from the Stempelglede grunge collection in the backgrounds.

Image: Gorjuss girl set 2 by Sugar Nellie coloured with copics

Papers: Porcelain silver birch, Kaiser elegance victoria, Bo Bunny Eire celtic text (reverse side)

Flowers: hand made and Prima

Embellishments: from stash

Other tools: Ink essentials white pen, Stempelglede grunge collection

Just Magnolia shape challenge

All was not lost after all on Friday having no E00 pen to colour my faces as I remembered I had coloured a Tilda for a Just Magnolia challenge a couple of weeks ago to go with some BoBunny papers and then decided the dress was too orange and needed to be pinker so I coloured her again but saved the one in the wrong colour, so all I had to do was match her up with some papers LOL, thank goodness for that! My refill ink came the next day but I'd already made this, but at least now I can colour again...yay!!!

I drew the shape of the card by drawing round different sized circles to form the curves (I used ribbon spools to draw round) I only had the aqua paper that really matched Tilda so used the Magnolia new year swirl and butterflies to make the paper behind Tilda and also added some liquid pearl dots, then I stamped the falling lilacs behind Tilda with plum q chalk so that they were still round Tilda after I cut her out. I cut two large butterflies out and made their antennae with some green wire. I couldn't find a place I was happy with to put a sentiment without spoiling the card so decided to hang it on a piece of wire

!

The inside is quite plain as I didn't have a pen to colour another Tilda! Might add a Tilda to the inside now I have some ink. I stamped some small butterflies in the centre of the shape and they have glitter wings and I cut out two large butterflies and stamped their antennae onto the card.

Image: Tilda picking lilacs from Magnolia coloured with copics

Other stamps: Magnolia new years swirl and butterflies. Papermania happy birthday stamp

Paper: BoBunny

Flowers: Prima and punched from the paper

Commissioned Magnolia card

As you can see this card is almost the same as the Whiff of Joy one below appart from the image and a few bits on the front. I was asked to make a card with the same papers and colours but with the Tilda picking lilacs image. I made some more paper to match and pretty much copied the front with a few changes because the image was bigger than previously. The inside is different too. I have tried to make Tilda look like a sepia photograph with the flowers picked out in colour, like you see them done on black and white photos only I didn't think black and white would suite the card. Bit of a disaster whilst colouring Tilda though.....my skin white copic has run out...yes run out after only 2 months!!!! So now have to go to my local craft shop for another, lets hope they have it in stock or I won't be able to colour any images until I get one! So please do not look too closely at Tilda's face for now because I couldn't finish blending it and will have to do it when I get the new pen. x

This is the inside.

Image: Tilda picking lilacs by Magnolia coloured with copics

Papers: hand made using distress inks, q chalks and Stempelglede grunge stamps

Brads, ribbon etc: from stash

Flowers: hand made using Stempelglede grunge stamps

Whiff of Joy challenge

I just LOVED doing this card, I really went mad with it LOL. I decided I was going to make my own paper with a distress ink pad and using some of my grunge stamps. It didn't turn out too bad for my first go with the distress ink so I decided to use it on the card as I'd done the colours to match the stamp I'd already coloured in. (I was so excited to receive the stamps yesterday I ended up stamping them all on the envelope they came in and coloured one in. Then I was so pleased with the colours I couldn't put her in the bin so the bit of envelope has ended up on the card!!) I thought my paper ended up looking like pot pourri and this gave me the inspiration for the rest of the colouring on the card. The flowers are made using the flower stamps from the grunge collection too and I added some gold wire threaded with pearls. I also made some paper "lace" with a small flower punch. In the middle of the small blue flowers I made some fillaments with several strands of cotton and blobs of liquid pearls on the ends which I'm really pleased with and will be doing again I think!

The inside is decorated with the rest of the paper I made and some more flowers and I stamped Willow's head in the grunge circle stamp and coloured it to look like a cameo because I thought her face looked just like the sort you get on a cameo.

This is my hand made paper before I turned it into the card!

Image: Whiff of Joy coloured with copics

Paper: hand made using Distress Ink and Q chalks and Stempelglede grunge stamps

Embellishments: wire, pearls, ribbon and brads from stash

Flowers: hand made with flower stamps from Stempelglede grunge collection

Just Magnolia stitching challenge

My goodness!!! I cannot believe I have spent I don't know how many hours hand stitching a card LOL!!!! I'm a wonderweb girl wherever I can get away with it and here I am sewing paper LOL!!! I have wondered what all the fuss is about when I've seen that people have stitched their cards but I think photos obviously don't do it justice because now I've seen it in the flesh I can totally see what the fuss is about....it looks really gorgeous!! I do love the way these challenges get me doing something I wouldn't normally choose to do. I decided to use this challenge to make a card for my Mum from my children rather than a card to put in my "for whenever" box. The paper I used I saw on a foreign site and fell in love with it then saw it on Tabbycrafts site and had to get it....but have you ever bought a paper because you love it and then found it doesn't actually seem very easy to make a card with?? that's this paper. I really struggled at first embellishment wise as the highly stylised flowers on the paper just didn't go with any of my flower stash. Necessity is the Mother of all invention though and it caused me to have the flower and wire idea that mimics the paper. I just coloured some of my paper covered wire from my cake decorating supplies with black marker and drew some leaves to match the paper et voila! I'm really pleased with how it all gels together.

I have decorated the inside with the same paper and another image and just a little stitching this time...my fingers couldn't take any more!

Image: Butterfly Tilda from Magnolia coloured with Copics

Papers: Bo Bunny Angel Island "Phoebe", Bazzill dot card and green card by Papermania

Ribbon and gems: from stash

Flower and wire: hand made and cut from the paper

Stitching: A true labour of love with needle and thread LOL!