A Card for Spring ...

We have ahad glorious weather this week, it would have been fabulous for Summer never mind Spring and to top it all I've broken up for the Easter holidays today so I am at home for the next two weeks - yippeeee!!

The challenge over at Just Magnolia and Hanglar Stanglar challenge blog is to create a card for Spring, I'm using Spring colours for my card

Two weeks ago I spent the weekend with 7 of my crafty friends in a cottage in the middle of nowhere playing with paper, eating, laughing and generally having a fabulous time. Jan taught me how to make this card, it folds flat for posting.  I used gorgeous Pion papers from my other friend Jean, ribbon, flowers, crystal swirls, lace, liquid pearls and pins (tinted with a Copic pen to coordinate) all from the Ribbon Girl and it was the perfect card to enter as my Guest Design Team card into the challenge that the Ribbon Girl is sponsoring. Check out the blog for more details

Sweet Baby ...

The challenge for Just Magnolia and Hanglar challenge is to create a card using white plus one colour and I chose Lilac for my accent colour.

Papers are Melissa Francis, seam binding, lace and crystal swirl are from Ribbon Girl, tag die and sentiment stamp is from Papertrey and I attached the tag with a tiny safety pin that I've had in my supplies for years and years. Little Hanglar is coloured with Copics and extra sparkle on her wings is stickles.

Hopefully my post published when it was meant to as I am out celebrating my birthday with my crafty friends :)

Not Exactly Playing With Paper ...

It seems like a long time since I updated my blog but I have been very busy - buying a house! My first house :) There is a lot of work to do - new kitchen, new bathroom, new doors and windows, knock walls down, build walls up, move walls, new fire and fireplace, plaster all the walls and ceilings, paint everything, new flooring. That's where I've been then - not exactly playing with paper but playing at being a builder :)  I have made a few cards though:

This was the card that I made for last weeks Papertake Weekly challenge which was to add a touch of bling.

I added stacks of bling to this card! The mermaid stamp is a Hanglar Stanglar stamp, coloured with Copics and her tail is covered with Stardust Stickles - my absolute favourite type of glittery sparklyness! The papers are all Cosmo Cricket and I've embossed the pieces with a couple of different Cuttlebug embossing folders, distressed and stiched the edges and then applied more generous amounts of Stickles. The pearl swirl has been coloured with a Copic marker to change it's colour - I love to do this with pearls and crystals - before I stuck it to the card. Even my ribbons are sparkly. I've used wide silver lame that I coloured with the same Copic marker as the pearls and over the top of this I've used gold glitter mesh which also got the Copic treatment. To finish I added a couple of metal embellishments from Stampin Up and a starfish charm and knot of button twine

A Happy, Happy Birthday Card ...

Oops, almost forgot to share my Papertake Weekly card! I love this card, it's been sat on the shelf above my craft desk for ages because I din't want to put it in the card box

The challenge this week is to use a sketch

I used:

Stamps (Image and sentiment)  - Lili of The Valley (cloured with Copics)

Papers - The Sweetest Thing digital kit by Zoe Pearn at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Dies - Spellbinders

Pom Pom trim and heart pins - Ribbon Girl

Other - distress inks and sewing machine

Jingle All The Way To Christmas ...

It's the 25th of the month so we have a new Christmas challenge over at the Ribbon Girl blog. I made two projects for this challenge

The first is a card using a Crafters Companion Christmas Humphrey stamp, I love this little elephant and it stamps so nicely. I coloured him with Copics and then sprayed it with Spray & Sparkle to make him glittery and shimmery. I added a nice big bow made with spotty organza, ricrac and a polka dot button from the Ribbon Girl and those papers are a recent purchase from Pink Petticoat - love them!

My second Christmas project is this fab wooden reindeer from Kaisercraft that I have covered with papers from Nitwit Collections. I added a jingle bell garland made from bells and bakers twine from the Ribbon Girl and cut out a saddle using one of the Spellbinders labels dies. I covered his antlers with Stickles to make them super sparkly. I bought my reindeer from Merly Impressions

Winter Wishes ...

Last week the postman brought us some gorgeous fairy stamps from Sugar Nellie so today I have made a card to enter into the Sugar Bowl Challenge which is a sketch.

Stamp - Titania from Sugar Nellie (coloured with Copics)

Papers - All I Want For Christmas from Echo Park

Sentiment stamp - Papertrey Ink

Ribbon and lace - Ribbon Girl

Cardstock - Papermania

Glitter spray - Spray and Sparkle from Crafters Companion

Ribbon Girl Colour Challenge

The colour challenge over the Ribbon Girl blog is lilac and green and we have a great prize of a £10 voucher to spend at Lili Of The Valley and either a green or a lilac ribbon mini kit from Ribbon Girl

This is the card I made using the lilac and green colour theme

My Minds Eye paper

Tiddlyinks digital stamp

Satin ribbon

Seam binding

Crystal swirl (recoloured with a Copic marker)

Stickles

Copic Markers

Martha Stewart paper punch

Pink Petticoat sentiment

Safmat

I love how you can recolour the crystal swirls to coordinate with any project by simply running a Copic marker over them

Okay, I'm off to get on with the mountain of school work that needs to be done before Monday morning - only 1 week to go until half term and a week off though. Yippeeeee!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzz...

The current challenge over at Papertake Weekly is to use something with wings and this is my card

Hanglar stamp coloured with Copics

Echo Park dots and stripes paper from 3DJean

Magnolia swirl

Ribbon and charm from Ribbon Girl

Pirate Bear ...

I just love this sweet little pirate bear stamp from Lili Of The Valley and I've used it on this card for the current LOTV challenge, it's based on the sketch for the challenge

Stamp - LOTV

Papers - My Minds Eye

Ribbon, twine and charm - Ribbon Girl

Colour medium - Copics

Sentiment - Pink Petticoat

I made this card at the weekend and now I am back at work I'll have to get back into my weekend only crafting routine. I've been off 6 weeks and today was the first day back. I had a lovely day catching up with all my work pals and getting our classroom ready for the children who will fill it tomorrow.

Ribbon Girl colour challenge ...

This is one of the cards that I made for the colour challenge at the Ribbon Girl blog. The colours for the challenge are pink, brown and cream and I chose to use this lovely pirate Magnolia stamp

The ribbon and lace are from the Ribbon Girl and all of the papers are from this fantastic digital kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs

This card went off through the post to a special little friend who is 11 tomorrow, I lined the envelope and added a plain printed image using the same stamp to the front of the envelope. I also made a gift box for her birthday gift using the same papers and this pillow box template from Sweet Shoppe Designs.

The lovely pink and white pencil stripe ribbon looked just too new and clean for a pirate adventure card so I made it grubby and worn looking by colouring it with a Copic pen - E42 - and fraying the edges

Hello!

Today over at the Pink Elephant Challenge we are showcasing some of Lori's digital stamps as well as focussing on how we colour them using our Copics. Our lovely friend Claudia at DieCutsRUs is having a huge Copics Sale so if you are in need of a few more pens to add to your collection then that is the place to go!

So, this is my card and how I coloured it. I am in no way an expert, just a beginner really so who knows if I'm doing the colouring correctly but I like how they look so for now I'm sticking with my method :)

For this card I cropped my digi stamp so that I only had the part I wanted to colour, enlarged it to fillmy cardblank and printed it. When I colour with copics I have my colour chart right next to my image so I can select just the right colours and compare what they will look like together

I start with the darker colours and blend outwards with lighter colours

I try to think about where the light and dark shadows would fall - but I'm not so good at that part :lol:

For the skin I used colours E00, E50, E53, YR0000 and I used the same colours for her neck, hands and arms

Moving onto the dress I used the darkest yellow at the top, sides and just a little around the spots

As I moved in towards the centre I used the lighter colours of yellow blending the edges so that they merged together

I used the same process to color the sleeves of the dress, starting with the dark and moving towards the light

For her bow in her hair I used the same darkest yellow as the dress in the centre of the bow

Then moved out towards the edges with the lighter colours, blending each colour over the top of the previous one

Here is the hair bow coloured in and you can see the darker and lighter areas

For the dress and bow I used Y17, Y15, Y08, Y00

I find colouring the hair really difficult so I will be watching the other girls to see how they do it. But me, I start with the darkest colour at the top of the hair

I blend over this with my middle brown colour

And then move down the length of the hair with the lighter of my brown colours

See how you can see the join where the lightest colour meets the middle brown, there is a line across her head!

So I blended all the colours using my lightest brown to take away the join lines

For the hair colours I used E29, E37, E49

Moving onto the spots on her dress I colour with the darkest pink first

Then blend in the lighter and I use the same process for the frills on her sleeves and around her neck

I used RV21, RV23, RV34 for the pink spots and the frill

And this, is the card that I made. I love the effect enlarging the digi stamp has and then just using a part of the stamp and I teamed it with Papertrey and Doodlebug cardstock and my circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities and some new ribbon that is coming soon to The Ribbon Girl.

See her cheeks - I cheated with my colouring and added her lovely rosy cheeks with Stampin Up chalk! and her freckles are done with a white pen

I Dare You ...

Goodness, a whole week since my last blog post but I do have a good reason - a very nasty throat infection that came out of nowhere last weekend. I've been completely floored by it all week and just starting to feel better yesterday and today. I've done hardly any colouring or cardmaking and haven't been in work all week either so it's a bit of a miracle that I have a card for this weeks Daring Cardmakers Challenge let alone two!!

This weeks challenge is all about cards for boys and I've used stamping and my lovely Copics on both of these.  My first card uses a sweet little Hanglar boy riding a bike and papers from the Happy Go Lucky digital kit at Sweet Shoppe Designs and the second features a Lollipop stamp in digital form from Lori Boyd together with papers from the Away We Go digital kit from Nitwit Collections.  I have two cards for this weeks challenge because I couldn't decide which one to use :)

I'm hoping to continue to feel better during this weekend and get over this throat infection so I can get back to work, get back to cardmaking and get out of this house!

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary ...

Mary, Mary how contrary

How does your garden grow

With silver bells and cockle shells

and pretty maids all in a row

I loved this little Hanglar girl getting ready to plant some seeds and make her garden pretty for the summer and whist I was colouring her and making the card this nursery rhymes popped into my head.  I found a use for the vegetable papers from my Cosmo Cricket 6x6 paper pad too :)

Shopping for cardstock ...

On Sunday I called into our Papermill shop. I love their boxes of card, during the last year they've really improved their range and seem to stock standard colours now (well they do in my shop) and I love their bright colours. Anyway, when I went in on Sunday they had some lovely bright card including turquoise which has a pattern that looks very similar to the Bazzill Doodlebug card. Even better though is that it coordinates perfectly with my gorgeous turquoise ribbons from Papertrey

I had to use my lovely new turquoise cardstock to make a card with the stamp that I coloured at my crop on Friday night (with my lovely Copics of course)

In A Flap ...

.. well not literally.  The challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week is to make a card with a flap and here is mine.

A sweet little Hanglar boy coloured with my new Copics (I love them by the way) and I made the little hinges with a stampin up tab punch.