Sparkle and Bling

As this week saw the annual Bonfire/Fireworks Night over at The Daring Cardmakers we've been getting into the spirit of things and making cards with plenty of Sparkle $ Bling!
For those who don't know, the year 1605 saw the failure of what became known as the Gunpowder Plot. The conspirators planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament along with King James I - if you want to find out more click here
Anyways, its a good excuse to have a bit of a party every year as Winter sets in, there's often a nice big bonfire - and on top of this there'll often be an effigy (probably some old clothes filled with straw and a mask of some kind for his face) of the infamous Guy Fawkes - one of the plotters - sounds macabre, deosn't it? There'll be plenty of fireworks and if you're lucky some tasty food too.

It's Jozza's turn to set the challenge this week, and she persuaded Lou Brigden, designer of the popular Dottie and george downloads to send the DT a set of images to play with. Not content with that she managed to get Karen, owner of the fabby Charmed Cards & Crafts shop to come on board for this dare too. Consequently we have TWO prizes to give away:
From Lou: 2 free downloads of the winner's choice from the Dottie and George Christmas collections
From CCC (sorry, this one is UK only): A fab mystery prize of goodies from the shop

Both these are, as usual Lucky Dip prizes so everyone who makes and shares a card with us featuring plenty of Sparkle & Bling is in with a chance - check the blog for more info

Oh, and the other news is that we've a new Guest Designer; Ruth, aka Tip Top is joining us for November. Ruth's stuff is fab, so it's going to be great to see her cards on the DCM blog for a whole month.

Here's my card for this week.
I have to say, I really struggle with"cutesy" images - I love what other people manage to do with them - and you'll see some wonderful cards on the DCM blog this week, and all around the web for that matter. But when I try to use them I'm always disappointed with the result. I can't colour in for toffee, and although Lou kindly sent ready coloured in as well as blank images for us to use I decided to use a blank one and then "colour" it in using PSP. I then got diverted (like I don't have enough to do atm, without faffing about) and started playing with textures too - so, if you were to see this image in a bigger size you'd see that the background, and the birdie suits all have diffferent textures, spots, weaves, marbled - a waste of time really as once I'd downsized the image for printing you can't see them.
The idea was that if two people were prepared to wear matching birdie suits then it MUST be love. Not sure about it now it's done though!
The scalloped edging is hand cut, the lettering was made with PSP - I just used the mouse to "draw" the letters, then expanded and flood-filled them to make sure they'd be ok for cutting on the Robo.
Though it's not a great card it was a worthwhile exercise because;
I practised using the brushes, fills, colour changing, texture tools etc in PSP
I practised mouse-controlled writing, and using some other PSP tools to make my own wording
I learned it's good to STOP adding Sparkle & Bling before it all gets out of hand! I had some lovely heart-shaped gems laid on this card initially, but I photographed it and realised when I saw it on the screen that they made the card look even worse - so I took them off, and stuck to the glitter glue.

I was soooo busy yesterday that I didn't get a chance to add my other Bubbly Funk Kit project my blog. I'd had this cheapie clipboard lurking in my stash for a year or so and decided that this kit would be perfect for actually using it

With the big bold designs of the Cosmo Cricket papers, the September kit was fab for making something bigger. After stripping away the blue plastic I used thin black card, plus strips of spotty Adornit paper (also in the kit) to cover the back, edges and front of the clipboard - they made a wonderful background for the "Hello Sunshine" papers
Once I'd stuck down some bits around the edges I decided to use the same basic sketch I made for one of my cards to fill in the big space in the middle.

I made a little "box" from a strip of paper to use as a note holder. The quotation panel is in the matching 8x8 pad

The mini pen was in a pack from Wilkinsons, I used one of the big chipboard buttons and twill tape from the kit to make a holder for the pen.
A few people have left comments saying that they too found this paper collection a bit scary - my advice would be to have a go at something like this - something nice and big, like a notebook cover or clipboard, because once you actually start using them these papers take on a life of their own, and you'll soon be thinking of lots of other ways to use them.
Don't forget my little sketch - I'd love to see if anyone uses it to make cards, LOs or other stuff with it, so please have a go and let me know where I can dome to see what you make