Friday, March 24, 2023

Beautiful Buzzing Bees

 

Hello
Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, 
 
Its Rizwana's turn to set the challenge this week and its all about

Beautiful Buzzing Bees

Rizwana says:

 Create a card, a tag, a box or a gift bag with bees in mind.
You can use anything related to bees; honey, honeycomb, bee hives and of course some lovely buzzing bees.
.

 

 I don’t often use coloured  and blanks but over the years I’ve managed to accumulate quite a stack of them-  So I thought I’d set myself a little challenge to  use some of them-  This one is actually a lovely deep aubergine kind of colour (although it looks more brown in the picture) which looks fab as a backdrop to the gold details


 I used:
the inner layers from a box of croissants for the torn corrugated card panel 
Yellow and gold card for the honeycomb 
Blac and yellow card for the bee+ plus some dull silver paper for the wings. 
The bee and the honeycomb are cut using a Spellbinders die set from a few years ago. 
 The sentiment is also die cut from gold card. 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, 



 

Friday, March 10, 2023

Spots and Stripes

  
Hello
Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, 
It’s Nat's in the hot seat and here's her challenge
 
Its my turn to set the challenge this week and its all about

 Spots and Stripes

 Nice and straightforward! 
You can use both or either on your card this week.
I wonder how many ways to use them and techniques to make them you'll come up with...
 

I used:
The striped background and the spotty piece for the sentiment panel were created on the pc and printed onto white Bazzill card
for the flowers I used a wonderful oldish Spellbinders die set and two shades of yellow Bazzill card.
To complete I added some enamel dots in yellow and green, and I punched a few different sized circles using my new WRMK cropodile multi hole punch
 The sentiment (also Spellbinders) and some of the leaves were cut from some inked card in a darker, toning shade of green.  The other leaves were cut from a small piece of card I printed to perfectly match the stripes and spots ones

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, 



 

Monday, February 27, 2023

Treat Yourself

 


Hello
Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, 
It’s Nat's in the hot seat and here's her challenge
The theme for this week's challenge is:
Treat Yourself
Inspired by Donna and Tom on Parks and Recreation, who celebrate the art of  treating yourself in the best way possible, I want you to make a card featuring something that's a treat or using something that you have treated yourself to!
 Here are the treats that the design team came up with:
 
Well. a slice of cake is always a treat isn't it?
I'd added this this die set  to my Amazon Wish List before Christmas and was lucky enough to find it under the tree - I think a 'wish come true' is a treat, don't you?

I used:
A sheet from a lovely old MME pad for the background
Sizzix Cake die set and various shades of Bazzill card
The sentiment was pc generated and glued on Kraft card, with twine added to resemble a cafe style blackboard
 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, 



 

Friday, February 17, 2023

Waxing Lyrical


  Hello
Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, 
It’s Joanne in the hot seat and here's her challenge

Waxing Lyrical

This week and I'd like you to find a way to incorporate wax into your project — it might be figuratively (an image of candles, perhaps) or literally (e.g. use a wax crayon or candle to create a resist, try out a technique like this or this with wax paper, get out the encaustic wax and iron if you have them).
This was my second attempt at a card for this challenge, the first didn't work out in the time I had available so I decided to  go with something I could put together quickly - plus use up some of the inky card I'd made for last week!
 
 I used
Black card from some packaging for the large letters and the bunting
(I always keep nice card that comes as packaging or junk mail etc)
Bright inked card scraps from last week's project
A birthday cake candle from my baking drawer in the kitchen 
(I cut it down slightly to fit better)
Black and white twine
All letters are die cut
Bunting is had cut 
The candle is glued in place
The stars are punched
 
 
If I get the first card finished, I'll be sure to post it at some point!

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 


Friday, February 10, 2023

Be Mine


  Hello
Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, 
and of course its the time of the year when our thoughts turn to lurrrrve

Its Dawn here with this weeks challenge

ALL LOVED UP

So to this week's challenge and as we are so close to Valentine's Day it's just got to be all hearts and flowers. 

 

I won't go into details about how much time and how many tries I had at making this card - save to say it was rather excruciating.

The only bits that I was sure of were the letters

I chose bright shades of ink and smooth white card then cut a batch of the letters I needed.  Next I cut the letters in black card several times so that I could layer them up and top with a coloured letter.

The smaller letters were cut in red inked card as were the bunting shapes,the various hearts were cut in scraps of the original inked pieces of card.

I've used some black and white twine and silver thread for the bunting and added a couple of red heart gems to complete the card


 Thank you so much for coming by
 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,
 






Saturday, February 04, 2023

February Elemental Inspiration

 

  
 Hello, and Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, 
 

It's Nat here today and as it's the first Friday of the month it's time for the

February Elemental Inspiration Challenge
 
You need to pick any 3 elements from the photo for your card - remember colours count as one element.  

There are plenty of elements to choose from: hearts, fabric and knit textures, geometric layouts, pastel colours, cups, drinks, socks, landscape scenes, even pink chocolate

 Here's my inspiration photo:


For my card I've used the layout of the rectangles, the pastel colours, cups and saucers and a few hearts

I arranged my cups and saucers in a stack to echo the pile of towels in the top middle image too!


I cut a couple of cams from the edge of a square card to make a fat rectangle
The papers I’ve used are from a couple of digital downloads. My printer’s ink cartridge needs changing so I think 
They’ve printed a bit paler than they should have done, but they are still pretty. 
I couldn’t print again because the printer makes a racket and OH seemed to be on meeting calls every single time I needed to do something a bit noisy!
I resized then printed the designs onto white Bazzill card and used one for the background. 
The rectangles are just cut with the guillotine
I used a Spellbinders die set for the cups and saucers and punches to cut the hearts. 
“Hi” is from another Spellbinders die set 
To add a bit more interest and texture I added some silver twine and a few gems

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 


Friday, January 27, 2023

Around the House


  Hello
Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, 
It’s Joanne in the hot seat and she says:
 
 There are two ways to play with this week’s challenge which is
 “around the house”
You can either 
use a household object as part of your creation (e.g. foil from the kitchen, dry wall tape from the tool box, scrape a design into paint with the prongs of a fork) 
or use an image of a household object as your focal point (e.g. a TV, a food mixer, a games console). 
You could do both for extra virtual brownie points if the mood takes you!
 
I went to the kitchen for my inspiration

I've used Bazzill card, Kraft card and silver card 
The larger tools are cut using a Spellbinders die set, everything else is cut using a Tonic crafting kit from last year
I haven't added a sentiment because I couldn't think of something suitable!

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 



Friday, January 20, 2023

Viva Magenta

 Hello
Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, 
which is set by Rizwana

Pantone's Colour of the year is

Viva Magenta.

This rich and exuberant colour promotes
joy and optimism.
This moodboard has lots of magenta ideas to inspire you. 
You can use lots or just a hint of this colour
when you create your card this week

 

I found this really hard!  

Apparently Magenta doesn't really exist - or it's got such a complicated make-up that no-one can really give a definitive answer to what it actually is!


I made the background using at least 6 different ink pads to try and get something I thought could be called 'magenta'  As the colour varies across the piece you can take whichever shade you think is most correct!

'Tufted' embossing folder from Spellbinders

Silver thread sewn through the card

Random flat-backed pearls glued on the crossovers

HAPPY letters; Altenew alphabet die set

Birthday die by Creative Expressions

Rose from an old Craft Box

Pearl strands from stash

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 



 

Friday, January 13, 2023

New crafty things

 Hello
Thanks for visiting. 
 
Today I’m sharing my card for this week’s Daring Cardmakers Challenge, set by Miri:

New Year – New crafty things
 
Use a piece of your craft supplies (stamp, tool, stencil…) that you have never used before!
Give it a new chance or a beautiful beginning in the new year.
Maybe you even got some supplies for Christmas? Or, like in my case, the weeks before Christmas were just too busy to try out your new things.

I was lucky to have a few craft related gifts at Christmas and
 quite a few were die sets so I've chosen one of these 
to use for my card
This cute die is from Spellbinders and is absolutely adorable!
I also used inks and Nuvo mousses for colouring the birds, the
 leaves, the background and the frame
 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 


Friday, January 06, 2023

DCM January Inspiration Challenge

 Happy New Year to you
 

  I've been truly appalling at keeping my blog up to date in the last few months so I'm going to try harder this year.  
I've not been well for quite a while, but am gradually starting to feel brighter and more 'with-it', but at least for the time being I think that I need to keep it simple so I'll share some photos and maybe some basic info about what I've made and not much else!  
At least it keeps the blog alive
 
 
It's Shabneez here and as it's the first Friday of the month it is an 
Elemental Challenge.  Here is the inspiration photo:

You need to pick any 3 elements from the photo for your card - colours 
count as one element.  
There are plenty of choices: wood, spoon, key, patchwork, foliage, 
rectangle, layers etc.  
You can see lots of inspiration from the Design Team below and we 
look forward to seeing your creations!
 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 Here's my card using the pinked edge, layers, colours and foliage
I've used 
quite old papers, mainly My Mind's Eye, 
Corrugated card from some packaging 
Various die sets for the foliage and butterflies


Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,