Brighter Days are On Their Way (or, The Power of Positive Thinking)

 

  Hello,

  Well, we've almost made it to the end of January, it's been a tough month in so many ways, hasn't it?

 I really hope you and your loved ones are coping ok with all the Covid stuff -  it was always going to come back and bite us hard, especially when winter came around, if only more people had been more pessimistic (sometimes pessimism helps, you know!) and kept up their guard!
 It's not easy though, is it?

 

 This week's Daring Cardmakers challenge has been set by our lovely Queen of Mixed Media, Svenja:

This week especially the weather has been very varied in my area here in western Germany. We literally had it all: snow, sunshine, rain... no hail, though. So I guess the theme I thought up for you fit's just fine:

No Matter the Weather :-)

Get out your wellies and umbrellas, snowflakes, rainbows and parasols and make a weather-themed card!

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

One of the gifts in my Christmas stocking was a really cute little die set from Sizzix featuring lots of garden and gardening items. Among the dies was a welly boot and this challenge gave me the ideal opportunity to use it

 Info

Card blank is a smooth white 'fat' rectangle with a top fold. To start with I inked up a few pieces of the same snoot card with various shades of ink.  I like the wau the inks work on the card, the finish is less 'flat' than if I'd used coloured cardstock, plus ot has a bit of a sheen.

I die cut 2 boots for each colour and glued the pairs together adding a small strip f card between the layers to give a little dimension. After arranging them on mu card I glued them down, again adding a scrap of card, to the reverse - this gave me enough of a gap to add the sentiment strip under the boots on the top row.

The sentiment was created in Paint Shop Pro and sized to fit the space. I cut narrow strips from spare inked card to make the banners and glued them to the reverse of the sentiment before gluing down.

For the flowers I found the smallest flower dies from various sets and cut them out from more inked scraps. 

To finish and add a bit of glamour for a rainy day when you need your wellies. I added gems for the flower centres on the boots.

 At this point I will tell you a secret: I don't own a pair of wellies 🤯😲😮

 Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Squaring Up

 

 Hello,

 

Hope you and your loved ones are keeping safe and well and managing to find some happy things amid all the bad stuff we are dealing with. 

 It's not easy though, is it?

My own piece of Positivity is that at last I'm starting to feel more creative! Whoop Whoop!

So I'm getting straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge as I actually enjoyed making it.  Though the flower did cause me a bit of a 'moment'!

This week our lovely Shabneez is in the chair with this challenge.

You're So Square!

Use squares on your cards - the more the better!  You could use a square card base, apertures, stamps or stencils.  Show me how you can use squares creatively!

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

I resisted the urge to go straight to the fab Scribbled Squares die set, which was Very brave of me!  Instead, I thought I'd have a bit of fun with Nuvo Embellishment Mousse and a Crafter's Workshop stencil

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I went off the 'square' by cutting a narrow strip off the side of white square card blank/  Maybe I should have left it square to keep in the spirit of the challenge, but I can be a rebel sometimes 😲😮
I used lots of different colours of lovely Nuvo Embellishment mousse with the TCW squares stencil.  I love the multi coloured mosaic effect that I ended up with - the problem was what to do next!

I thought a simple HAPPY BIRTHDAY greeting would work ok so cut a couple of black layers of each letter then a layer in a soft sheen gold card.  The plan was to stop there but it did look a bit unfinished.

I remembered making a flower from punched squares and I thought that would be a fun way to play with the theme.  They are a bit fiddly, but a bit of fun - with hindsight I'd have just used the flower and some basic leaves rather than the leafy swirl, but never mind, you can't have it all and I'm happy that just something worked!

 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Circles

 

Hello,

 

Hope you are keeping safe and well and coping with the Lockdown.  It'll be worth it in the end...

I'm getting straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge as I'm so late in posting.  Mainly because my first idea was a disaster!  In the end I went back to a simple layout I used for quite a few of my Christmas cards

It's Nat here bringing you this week's challenge.

Apparently it's National Bagel Day in the US of A today, so I'm challenging you to celebrate that round food favourite by featuring a circle / circle frame / circle aperture as the main focal point of your card.

But should you happen to have a bagel or even a doughnut in your stash, it's definitely a good excuse to include that on your card!

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

Info

square white card blank
Circles background stencilled with Nuvo Embellishment mousse

Scribbled Circles dies (Tonic Studios) cut in Turquoise Glitter card.

The sentiment is by Spellbinders, I cut a second time in the glitter card and trimmed down to the 'you' section, which was then adhered over the black layer

The butterfly (Hunkydory) was cut in a pale pearl turquoise card for the lower layer and black for the upper layer

To continue with the circles theme I added a few blur gems and stones to complete the card 

 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

A Whole New Year....

Hello, Happy New Year!

Hope all is well with you, and you are coping ok with this latest Covid-19 situation.  Hopefully all the vaccination programmes will start having an effect - though its going to take a very long time fora lot of us to get even as far as seeing the queue, let alone the front of it!

Getting back into crafting after the Christmas break is always tough for me. Even though I'm very happy to put the Christmas stuff away and eager to get on with other projects, when I sit at my desk nothing happens! Hey ho!

 

I can's say I'm completely happy with my card for the first Daring Cardmakers challenge of the year, but you have to start somewhere
don't you?

January Elemental Inspiration Challenge

 Just pick a minimum of 3 elements from Dawn's Wintry mood-board
 to use when making your card.
Using the Colour palette counts as 1 element..
We're looking forward to seeing what you make

 

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration

I chose to use the squares, the cup and a pop of bright orange as my elements for this card.

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Slim white card blank
I inked a piece of scrap white card with a couple of pale blue shades of ink, then added some Nuvo Embellishment Mousse in Powder Blue and  a tiny amount of Cornflower Blue over the top to give a little shimmer.

From this I cut the three square, which I matted onto Kraft card squares that I'd embossed with a wood-grain effect embossing folder

For the flowers and cup I started by inking more card scraps then used a Spellbinders die set for the cup and the flowers are from a Memory Box Snowflake wreath die. 

The sentiment is also by Spellbinders

I added a few blur gems to complete the card

 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe