Cow Wrangler

I wanted to join in on a couple of Simon Says Stamp Challenges - the Make it Masculine Challenge and Flickr Challenge #20 with this cute and summery inspiration photo:



The greens in the inspiration photo made me think of the cows here out on the lush green pastures during the summer and the smiley sun in the photo inspired the cartoon cow and circular window. For masculine cards I usually try to keep things fairly plain and simple but like to throw in some humour and texture at the same time.



Stamp - Birthday Farm Animals (Simon Says Stamp)
Dies - Bundle of Stitched Shapes (Simon Says Stamp), Grassy Border (Lawn Fawn) & Circles Nestabilities (Spellbinders)

I die cut the card face using the rectangle die from Simon Says Stamp's Bundle of Stitched Shapes and then die cut the circular window. The die cut grass was layered behind the window and I used a piece from an old pair of jeans for the background. After stamping and colouring the cow I paper pieced the sentiment in orange because it's so often used for stitching and tabs on jeans. Once the cow was complete I nestled him in the grass and adhered the card front to a kraft card base.

A Good Book and a Trip to London

Paper Crafts August Gallery Challenge is to make a British inspired project.

As I don't have any British themed stamps, I decide to go with something I love – books and in this case books by British authors. Sometimes I read curled up in a comfy chair with a squishy cushion, so to go a bit further with the British theme I made a tiny Union Jack cushion for my card.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Wish You Were Here, Everyday Sayings and Designer Woodgrain

To start with I made the chair by stamping it twice, once on card and the other time on a scrap of suede upholstery fabric. Then I made the cushion with a scrap of denim from an old pair of jeans, wadding and thread\yarn.

To make the table I inked the stamp and kissed it with the woodgrain background using a slightly darker ink. There are so many wonderful British books to choose from but to save the table breaking, I just picked some on my favourites! The book titles were printed off using a variety of fonts and I tried to achieve a worn and well read look by using distress inks and rumpling the paper a bit. I curled the titles to form book spines and left them slightly bowed when I adhered them to a piece of backing card.

I'm also submitting this card into the current Hero Arts Challenge, as one of the themes is make your own embellishment.

Since the card is British inspired I thought I'd share some photos of our trip earlier in the year.

Up, up and away in Legoland, Windsor

A peek into Gryffindor Common Room, Warner Brothers Studio Tour, London

Up close to Hagrid

Spotting Marilyn at Madam Tussauds, London

A view of Big Ben and Houses of Parliament from the London Eye

Back on firm ground again for lunch

A visit to Tower Bridge

and finally aboard the H.M.S. Belfast

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Sending U Warm Fuzzies

Today I wanted to make a card with a mix of textures and materials. It started out because I was doing a sort out of my kids’ clothes and saved pieces of worn out jeans. Bits and pieces of these will probably end up on a patchwork bag but I took a little bit of denim for the card below.


Stamps (Hero Arts) - Everyday Sayings & Envelope Pattern

For the denim card base I adhered a piece of denim to a piece of card and die cut a scallop circle. The flowers were die cut from the denim and some pink felt. A “u” was also die cut from a little scrap of the felt. I had only one button with a check pattern on it, so for the smaller button I used a plain blue button and white embossed the envelope pattern on it. Appropriately enough, the sentiment was stamped using faded jeans distress ink.

I'm submitting the card into the following challenges:

Moxie Fab World - Fabulous Felt Challenge
Lily Pad Cards – Felt\Fabric Challenge
Creative Card Crew - Hand Made Flowers
Paper Creations Ink - Show Us Your Flowers