SUNSHINE and HARD WORK

This glorious weather has meant a catch up on the outside jobs. Most of my container trees have suffered this year and were so pot-bound too, that they were only destined for the tip! So for the last 4 days I have been hacking trees, fighting root-bound plants, moving great big heavy pots around and re-potting where needed. All that in between going out for new plants and re-painting my greenhouse. Phew!!

Anyway, I managed to make a couple of ATCs the first of which I am going to enter in the Totally Papercrafts Challenge #32 which is - Charming.

I used Victorian velvet and broken china distress inks for the background, spritzed with a perfect pearl concoction and over stamped with Tim's flourish stamp, again in Victorian velvet. The words are one of the Artistic Stamper stamps. I used a Sizzix die to cut flowers from material, net and Tim's vintage shabby paper stack. The little centre is a tiny piece of baby wipe coloured with a big and juicy ink pad and twisted into a mini rose. The ribbon is plain white but coloured by pulling it over the broken china DI. The little bird charm satisfies this challenge and finishes off the card.

I'll be back later with photos of the others and my fabulous seaside swaps from Heather.

ANYTHING GOLD STITCHING SKETCH

Wow, what a heading. It will make sense when I tell you that this card is for 4 challenges as follows:
Allsorts #51 - follow a sketch
Totally Papercrafts #15 - stitching, real or faux
Sunday Stampers #102 - Gold (see the link at the top of my sidebar)
Dare U 2 Digistamp ~37 - Anything Goes
All the links to these challenges are in my blog list.
This was fun to make yesterday but I didn't get the chance to post it because I couldn't get the Sunday Stamper photo to load. To be honest, I couldn't follow the notes I took down when the fabulous Dave, who I am in love with, showed me how to load photos into my sidebar. So Dave, a great big thank you for coming to my rescue - again!!
Had an interesting day today. It's my DH's birthday and our wedding anniversary so we've been out into Bridlington. However, we ended up at the hospital because I have developed a rather nasty ear infection and needed some antibiotics. Oops! I'm ok or at least will be when they kick in.
Must go though now. Thanks for looking and remember my blog candy day - 24th May.

A BIT OF A BUZZ

Quickly made this little card for the following 3 challenges:
http://copicscolourchallenge.blogspot.com - week 52 - YG00 mimosa yellow, RV13 tender pink and V91 pale grape

http://totallypapercrafts.blogspot.com - week 13 - 4 embellishments, 3 papers, 2 ribbons/lace, 1 image

http://dareu2digistamp.blogspot.com - week 36 - flowers - floral digi image, patterned paper, punched shape/border or embellishment

A 3 CHALLENGE CARD

At last I've managed to get on the net after trying for days. As soon as I get on, it kicks me out so fingers crossed for this post.

This little card meets these challenges:

Copic Colour challenge #60 Click Here

B93 -light crockery blue or BG93 - green grey

E47 - dark brown

Y23 - yellowish beige ( I used Y21)

Lily of the Valley challenge # 51 - a sketch click here

Totally Papercrafts challenge #12 - spring click here

I hope that if you click on the post title you will be ushered to the relevant blogs, but if not, their links are in the side bar of my blog.

I've had this flower fairy stamp for ages and think that this is the first time I have used it. I used the Copics to colour her then distressed the edges with bundled sage ink. The base paper is from K & co and the flower fairy card is from my stash as is the ribbon. The lovely little flowers are Prima. I tried to colour a gold peeloff greeting using a green Copic but it didn't come out too well.

I'm glad I've got this far tonight. Let's hope it loads now.

TOTALLY COPIC SHOPPING!!

Alright, the heading is my feeble attempt at saying that this card is my interpretation of an entry to 2 challenges.

The first is for the:

Copics Colour Challenge #56- click on the blinkie on the right hand side

BV02 - prune, Go2 - spectrum green, B32 - pale blue

The second is for the:

Totally Papercrafts Challenge #8 - click the link on my blog list

this weeks challenge is a sketch - luv these!!XXX

I've used some lovely lilac pearlised card for the base and added K & Co patterned papers as per the sketch. The lovely image is a digi design coloured with the required Copics and cut around using a Nellies frame. The matching fibres came with an order from Craft Obsessions, received this week.

Had fun with this one, but then, I have fun with most of these challenges.

TOTALLY PAPERCRAFTS #5

I had a play yesterday and came up with this card for the Totally Papercrafts challenge #5 which this week is a sketch. Check out the link in the side bar.

The image is Sugar Nellie - Manga Girl #2 which I have coloured with Copics (only need RV29 for the full set of ciao). The papers are from my stash, the purple ribbons are DCWV and the green is out of my ribbon box. The flowers are Prima and the beadazzle circles came with them. Not sure where I got the brads from though. I cut the plain circle of card with my Fiskars circle cutter - got the hang of that thing now! - and the scalloped paper was die cut using a nestability frame.

I like it when the challenge is a sketch and this one was a really nice one to complete.

LOTS OF SPOTS

Lots of Spots is #4 challenge from Totally Papercrafts - http://totallypapercrafts.blogspot.com/

This little card came about when I found the 2 pieces of Nonsense paper from We R Memory Keepers, almost cut to the right size. They were crying out to be used, so I have.

Firstly, I ran the scalloped paper through my Big Shot using the Cuttlebug embossing folder, spots. I shaped the flowery piece one one edge to match and stuck them to a 6"x6" hammered finish white card. The ribbon is from my 'little'!!!!! stash of ribbon.

I had already printed the cheeky elf so I simply coloured her with Copics and added a bit of stickles here and there. She is mounted with 3D foam pads for extra dimension.

Such a simple card but I think it's turned out well thanks to those gorgeous papers.

3 CHALLENGES - 1 CARD

Following on from the Copic workshop I went to last Saturday, I've had a go at colouring with red. It seems that together with black, red is one of the hardest colours to blend. Any colour is hard for me just now until I get in more practice, but the worse bit is judging where the light is angled and therefore where to shade. Funny really that I am struggling with this because in art at school, drawing still objects and getting the shading right was the only thing I could do with any success and even had a piece of art on the wall!!! Mind, it's a wonder I can even remember that far back!

This little card is for 3 challenges:

The Copic Colour challenge #51 - R29 - lipstick red, RV23 - pure pink and B12 - ice blue

The Totally Papercrafts challenge #3 - buttons and bows

The Allsorts challenge week 39 - A recipe with a difference - 3, 2, 1 - I've used 3 papers, 2 flowers and 1 image

Check out the links on the R/H side of my blog for all these challenges.

BOYS

Having just received this lovely Sugar Nellie image - Manga Boy - I had to have a play, just as I was able to have a little play with my new grandson yesterday when he made his first visit to our house with his daddy. Magic!!

Anyway, I've used a mixture of papers together with a few bits that a little boy may just have in his pocket, ie. string, buttons and a frog! What fun this was to make.

I would like to enter it in the Craft Garden February challenge - Boys,

and the

Totally Papercrafts challenge #2 - 3 embellishments, - 2 papers, - 1 image.