Friend birthday card

Happy Monday everyone and Happy Birthday to my best friend Margaret. I have made her this card which I hope she will like, it's another 'shabby' creation.


I used three pieces of paper for the background, including a piece of music from Mozart. The sentiment is from the TH Shabby French collection and I have mounted it on a Spellbinders 'In Spades' pendant which was distressed with Tattered Rose and I edged it and the sentiment with Aqua Cosmic Shimmer Twinkles. The papers have been distressed with Vintage Photo and I made the embellishments adding a sticker, button and flower.


I feel the overall effect has worked well and I am pleased with the way it has come together.


It's beautiful sunshine in this neck of the woods, so I hope you are having some cheerful weather wherever you are.

Happy birthday Margaret, have a lovely day and to you all, enjoy the week and thankyou for looking.


Love and hugs.  Brenda xxxx

Challenge List
Papertake Weekly - Shiny, sparkly and special   Very special card for my best friend
Your next stamp - Cut it out and pop it up           The sentiment and the mini-tag have been 'popped up'.
La La Land Crafts Blog - Anything goes
For Fun Challenges - an anything card using a stamp   The sentiment has been ink stamped.
Cute Card Thursday - Someone Special               That's Margaret
Digi Doodle #7 - Ribbon       Yep that's there
Stamp Something - Celebrate something               Definitely
Allsorts - Birthdays                 This fits the bill
Stamp with fun - Stripes           Two papers have got stripes on them
Practical Scrappers - Patterned Paper    Four different ones if you include the music paper!
Sweet Pea Stampers - Paper piecing      Four papers pieced together her

Picture Inspiration

Happy Good Friday.
It's the Easter weekend, but it is wet and miserable here, what about you? I am hoping to get out in the garden at some point, we will have to see.

Today I am posting two creations to fit the Paper Sundaes challenge of a picture inspiration. It caught my attention straight away. I wanted to use the image in a piece of art rather than interpret the colours or shapes, however to do this I knew I needed to experiment with materials I have never used properly and when I did try with them I wasn't very successful. So out came the alcohol inks (AI). I had bought some new stamps last week - British Wild Flowers from Creative Expressions and it includes a dandelion stamp. So I set about dabbing away with the AIs on glossy cardstock, but after 5 or 6 attempts I was not happy with the results. There was just one I felt I could stamp over.  Here it is. The central stamp is the new one, I also used some others including some grasses.

My next experiment started by using a brayer and a big and juicy stamp pad with a sunset range of colours. I then used the AIs over the top to create more depth. This time I stamped the grasses and some small flower heads using a snow cap pigment ink and dusted cosmic shimmers over them. I stamped the main design using archival ink.       You can see there is a difference in the 2 examples. I edged both with cosmic shimmer aqua twinkles, used similar colours in the DI ink pads and distressed white card which I then used the distressing tool on and edged further with star dust stickles. The butterflies I printed off from a collection I am accumulating and covered them with rock candy distress stickles.

Well, the girls are down in Seaton and apparently the sun has come out and they are going for a walk on the beach. What a lovely thing to be doing. I have some things to post made by my sister Chrissie and by my granddaughter Becca that I will put up over the weekend.

Thankyou for stopping by and for all the lovely comments that have been left on my other posts. Enjoy your weekend. LOL Bxxxx

This is the photo from Paper Sundaes that started me off.

Vintage Gift Card

Wow Saturday again, the weeks are slipping past so quickly. When I got up this morning to feed the cats it was a grey start to the day but now the sun is trying to peek through and it looks promising. Fingers crossed!!

 I have had such fun making this card. I wasn't sure how to approach my next project, although I knew I wanted to make something that I could put some money in as a wedding present for Matt and Sam next week. Having found some inspiration through the challenge blogs I set about gathering the things I would need. It took me a while to choose the image, which is from a pack by Debbie Moore. The layout, colours and recipe for elements were from challenge sites (see list below). The backing papers are from an Old World mat stack and the rose are a HOTP pack called Blossoms & Buds. The two flowers I have made using lace, buttons, punches and the cricut. I couldn't find the right coloured ribbons in my collection so I cut three pieces of cream organza and coloured two pieces using cosmic shimmer mist and tattered angels mist, I used these on the leaves and tiny butterfly too. I have distressed edges and used Stickles and Cosmic Shimmer Twinkles

This fits challenges -
Colour Create - Mint, chocolate and cream.
Simon Says Stamp - sketch
Gingersnap Creations - Frosting
Crafty Creations - Make your own flowers
Creative Inspirations - Charms
Everybody Art - Recipe - 2 papers, 2 flowers, 2 buttons.
Fussy and Fancy - Green
Raise the bar - Go Green

I went on to then make the inside into a gift card to hold the money. I used brown paper as the backing papers and stamped 'celebrate' in gold. On the left side I made a tag printing and embossing the swirls and edging it with cosmic shimmer twinkles. Again I used punches and the cricut to make the flowers and the sentiment. On the right hand side I used the roses paper to make the pouch and made an envelope from vellum to hold the money, again embellishing it to reflect the other side.
This fits challenges -
Cutecard Thursday - Celebrations
Frosted designs - background stamping

Finally I made the envelope to match and reflect the colours of the card. I used a 12x12 paper and cut it down to make my own template for it. Again I have used the roses paper, the 'faith' sentiment and the flowers that reflect the midle of the card.
This fits the challenge from Cuttlebug Challenge to make an envelope to match the art.

What do you think?

Have a great weekend. I am going to go out shopping for a while, haven't mooched for ages.

Take care. *luv* Bxxx

Distressed flowers

Happy Sunday

I am really into making flowers as embellishments at the moment and when I came across the sketch with a twist of flowers at The Sweet Stop, I just had to have a go. Totally Gorjuss and Pile It On also have a flowers theme and Saturday Spotlight's is MESSY, wey hey that's what I like. So this is it, what do you think?

This type of flower is totally new to me and they have been made with roughly torn cirles of card which have been curled around the edges and I added sparkle (of course) with the Cosmic Shimmer Aqua twinkles. There's lots of glitz on here as the nesties labels (used on my Big Shot) have been edged with Stickles Waterfall and Holly as well. I used the distressing tool on the flowery backing paper from K&Co and it has been misted with Glimmer Mist Blue Skies and Cosmic Shimmer Mist Golden Mint. Two of the corners have been distressed with Pine Needles ink and printed with a leafy twig stamp from Art Impressions. I added the ribbon and backing paper (edged with Lime Zest Pearlidoodles) to complete the look.

Experimenting with colours in the same range seem to be a thing for me at the moment and I enjoyed putting these together.

Challenges I am entering -
The Sweet Stop - SSS44 Sketch with a spin on flowers
Totally Gorjuss - Flower Power
Saturday Spotlight - Doing the Mess Around
Pile It On - Let us see flowers
Our Creative Corner - Try a new technique
Lots to do - Use a machine
Anyone For Anya - Something completely different

Quick card for today

Good evening. Life certainly can take a turn so quickly can't it. Suffice to say I was almost ready to post a new card yesterday and then had to deal with a family emergency. As you can see from todays card it was Mum who needed some help having had a fall, so here is the card I made for her today.

My lovely daughter Maddie, who studied design at university, has already critiqued it and told me there are several different styles in there. However I needed a main picture quickly, and these flowers has already been done, really I should have used a different patterned paper for the main mount but I had already chosen it for Mum as I thought she would like the roses. I have used the Cricut and nesties, my new Justrite stampers and embellished with Stickles and Cosmic Twinkles. The front is actually cut shorter than the back so that when flat you can see the Mum border at the side.

Hope you like it. Have a great weekend. B xx