Taking Inspiration

On the Daring Cardmakers this week Lythan set, what for me was a tricky challenge:

Inspired by.....Nat's signature style

"I would like you to take a trip into a world of pure gorgeousness by visiting the blog of lovely teamie Nat and getting inspired by her style. I have been a huge fan of Nat's since I started card making and I have seen her work evolve but it has always been current, stylish, clean but not simple and with a wonderful way with a focal point. Well that is my interpretation - I look forward to seeing what you take from Nat's signature style."

 

I've been thinking about this one for ages, ever since it popped up on our calendar, and wondering what the heck I could do!  To me, Nat has a style all her own; it's how she puts papers and other components together in a strong, graphic way, the way she uses quite bold paper designs without fear and of course, horror of horrors....she stamps!

I even went and bought a few new paper packs in the hope that they'd help - but in the end I didn't use any of the new stuff, and I avoided the stamping issue quite deftly, I reckon ;)

After a little scroll through her blog I'd made a little shortlist of Nat-esque things to use: bold paper background, a long strip of stripey paper, Doilies, Vellum, a big loopy word, enamel dots and a banner

Materials and Tools

Large top-fold rectangular card base

Papers: Miss Caroline "Howdy Doody" 12x12 set by My Minds Eye

Bazzill card to match

Plain creamy-white paper (no idea where this came from)

Vellum

Paper flowers and Lace ribbon (Santoro Mirabelle)

Polka dot satin ribbon

Enamel dots, Pearls

"Birthday" sentiment pc generated and printed on the same 

white paper as the lower doily

Dies:

Circle Doily (Crafters Companion) in 2 sizes, the lower in white paper, the upper one from vellum

"happy" (Memory Box) is cut from the peachy coloured Bazzill. I glued two pieces together, then cut the die twice - so there are four layers altogether

My big discovery when making this was how much I like that big flowery background.  Maybe it was upsizing the card base, maybe it was covering the whole of the card front, or maybe it was keeping the rest of the layers fairly clean and simple, but the thing that had been bothering me most - the bold pattern, I actually really liked.  And it is a very beautiful paper!

So thanks to Lythan for setting an out-of-the-comfort-zone challenge, and to Nat for consistently inspiring us with her special, signature style!

Thanks for visiting, I hope you'll check out the rest of the cards on the DCM Blog this week.

Swings and Roundabouts

It's my turn this week to set the challenge for the Daring Cardmakers and as I love adding a moving element to my cards, I thought this would make an interesting challenge for everyone

Swings and Roundabouts

I'd like to see a "swinging", "twirling" or "rocking"element on your card this week.....and, if you can also add a circle (for the "roundabout in the title), then you can give yourself a pat on the back for being a real Smartypants!

I ended up making a couple of cards, the first of which was the one I sent to my Aunt and Uncle for their Golden Wedding Anniversary last week, and has various hearts suspended in larger heart-shaped apertures, plus heart charms dangling in the top corner and a little "50" charm threaded through a tiny hole on the sentiment panel

Materials and Tools:

Large white card blank plus extra of the same card

Gold card

Black and Gold  Glitter card

Papers: MME "Charmed" metallic, from the "Record It" series 

Gold crochet thread, Gold metallic thread

Gold Ribbons, Brass Heart and "50"charms

MFT Nested Hearts die set

Tiny heart punch

Avery Elle "Love" die

As I didn't get a circle into that one, I thought I's see if I could combine circles, things on a thread AND a rocker into one card.
Some time back  DoCrafts sent me a wonderful set of large circle dies to use on one of the challenges they were sponsoring - honestly, I have used this die set SOooooooo much (Thank you again to DoCrafts for their generosity)
I started by covering enough of a sheet of white card with green spotty paper to cut a large circle, once cut, it was folded in half to make the rocking base.
Next I cut another piece of the green, plus a piece of some yellow paper and glued them to another piece of white card, butted up close together.  I taped the same size circle die over this piece of card so that the join in the papers was along the centre.  Now I taped the next size down circle die inside the first one so that when I put it through the machine  the ring shape was created.
The green part of the ring was glued to the rocker base to leave the yellow area standing up and a semi-circular aperture where the washing line would be suspended

Materials and Tools:

White card (330gsm)

Papers:  "Fine and Dandy" Echo Park (12x12)

Brown card for flagpole and pegs

Dies: Large circle die set DoCrafts/Xcut

QuicKutz  for baby clothes (a very long time since they've been out of the box!)

Twine for washing line

Homemade decal sentiment

Thats it for this time, but I hope you'll pop over to the BLOG to see how the team took up this challenge - the cards are just fantastic this week!

Thanks for looking

Spring Whispering?

I've another of my Funky Hand cards to share today.  

This time I've used the "Spring Whispers" papers from the Funky Seasons CD which you can find HERE - currently available at a very special price of just £1

Materials and Tools

Funky Hand CD: Funky Seasons 
Dotted Doily Circle Frame die set(Sweet Dixie)
Hyprid Rose (MFT)

 "Twirly Swirly" die set (Taylored Expressions)
2x circle punches for details

I rather like the way the quite bright and striking colours work with the simple layout and lots of white space!

Thanks for visiting today

Starry Starry Sketch

Planning ahead for the bunch of "boy" birthday cards I'll be needing later in the Spring, I've made this card using the March LO on The Sketch File, substituting stars for the squares and little heart shape on the sketch

 Materials and Tools

Papers; Carta Bella 6x6 Summer Lovin' pad

Dies; MFT Nested Stars, Crafter's Companion Plain Oval (from Oval frame set)

PC generated sentiment, Tiny gems, Black Versamagic ink pad 

Sketch:

A really simple and quick card!  It's not often my Materials list is as short as that!
Thanks for looking

A Sprinkle of Tiny Flowers

Here's a card I shared on the Funky Hand blog last week - yes, I'm a bit slow with this blogging lark!
 The Funky Hand DT are continuing revisiting some of the older CDs and Download collections, and at the moment we're featuring a CD called Funky Seasons, and in particular the "Spring" paper sets

I've chose the "Spring Walk" papers to use for this card.  You'll find them on the Funky Seasons CD which you can find HERE

Materials and Tools

Funky Hand CD: Funky Seasons

Memory Box "happy" die set

decal sentiment

Pennants are hand cut

small flowers are hand cut from one of the paper designs

die cut word is glued so that the centre section bows outwards for dimension

Thanks for visiting today

Heartfelt

I completely forgot to put the Valentine's day card I made for hubby, so I'll do it now! 

I made this one using mainly scraps left over from other Funky Hand projects, and lots of card layers for added dimension

Materials and Tools
Sentiment is printed directly on to the card 

Funky Hand Downloads:  "I Love You Sew" and
"LoveLoveLove"

MFT DieNamics Nested Hearts die set
 Ribbon with Printed Hearts
small silver heart brads, large patterned heart brad brad
Round and heart-shaped red gems
Black card scraps:
 the hearts are backed with multiple layers cut with the same dies for lots of dimension

Thanks for visiting today

Elements for March

We have a fabulous picture found by Nat for our March Elemental Inspiration challenge this week on the Daring Cardmakers.

You need to use at least three elements from the picture to use on your card, the colours can only be counted as one element. 

 Materials and Tools:

Background stencilled with Fresco Finish paints 

Paper: MME "Find your Wings and Fly", various paper pads

Large flower created using MFT Poinsettia die set

Taylored Expressions Twirly Swirly die set

Small flowers made with EK Success punch

Twine, Gift charm, gems, pearls and enamel dots

Inspiration Picture

So from the picture I chose; The big flowery bow from the gift on the lower left, Triangles from the wrapping paper for the bunting, Twine (bunting, bow for charm and tag), Gift (the little charm), Confetti - I used the pearls and enamel dots for mine, Swirls - mine are paper rather than twine, and the Spring Colours

This is a really fun challenge to try, and I hope you'll give it a try - head over to the DCM BLOG to see how the rest of the team have used the picture to create their beautiful cards this week

"Little Details"

It's New Sketch Tuesday on The Sketch File Blog today and I rather liked the view of the sketch in the "Greys with a Pop" colours, so thought I'd have a go at using the theme as well as the LO for my first card this month

I changed the orange colour pop on the sketch for yellow - I used black and white with bright, sunny yellow on my card for last week's Daring Cardmakers Yellow theme and decided that I loved the combo - so have stuck with it.

Here's the sketch

March Sketch "Little Details"

Materials and Tools:

March LO from The Sketch File

Smooth White card blank

Bazzill card; Greys, black, white, yellow

Heart punch, SU Pansy punch, Small circle punch, Corner punch

Scalloped Oval die (Spellbinders)

Small gems (Prima)

Decal sentiment

Yellow ink

That's all for this time, thank you for visiting

Mellow Yellow

Why on earth don't we use yellow more often?
If you have a look at the Daring Carmakers Blog,  I think you'll be asking the same question as the blog is full of sunshine this week!
It's all down to Nat's fabulous challenge:

 In an effort to spread a little sunny cheer in the cardmaking world this week we're focussing on a much underused colour in crafting - granted it can be a tricky one to match with other colours, but the focus this week is all on the colour:
YELLOW!
You can combine it with neutral shades of white, grey, cream, and black - but the predominant colour on your card must be yellow.

For some reason, I went straight to my small stash of stencils for this one - I didn't even check out the boxes of paper - not even the brand new, unopened packs I've indulged myself with in the last couple of weeks, were ignored (I will open them one day....).
I played around with a couple of the stencils, thinking along the lines of making some sort of inky background with them. then found one that came as a magazine freebie years ago.  It's very thick, and was really intended for using sections of it  for "doodling" through, but the idea of using Texture Paste mixed with some Acrylic paint popped into my head, so that's why this happened

I love how thick and gungy this stuff is, tbh I don't have much idea how I should be using it, but it's fun to spend a while playing with "different" and probably more messy (definitely so when it's me doing the playing), it stops you getting in a rut and sometimes it doesn't matter if you make a horrible mess and it ends up in the bin.  It's the adult equivalent of making mud pies, and we all know how engrossing that was
Having covered a couple of sheets of card with gorgeously gungy texture paste patterns I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with them.  Inspired by Svenja's glorious yellow and black creation which I'd already seen, I unashamedly pinched the colour combo and just added my old favourite flower and swirls to make my card

Materials and Tools

Smooth white card 

Yellow coredinations card, Black Bazzill scraps

Texture Paste

Fresco Finish Yellow acrylic paint (Paper Artsy)

Spotty Black and White paper (MME, Record It! Charmed Metallic print pad) 

Twill ribbon

MS border punch, SU Pansy punch

Taylored Expressions Swirly Twirly, and Spellbinders Leafy Swirl Dies

Black enamel dots

That's it for this time, thank you for popping by

Strumming

Another card for the current sketch on The Sketch File Blog today. 
I had to make a new guitar template to cut this - even though I know I've already got a template somewhere in my files - I know this because I found a photo of a card made a couple of years back that I used it on!  Hey ho, sometimes it's less hassle to start over than to spend hours searching for the first one.
 

It was only when I'd finished the card that  I realised I'd added a layered panel across the card (under the guitar), when in fact I'd meant just to use the entire guitar as the horizontal panel/focus piece, with just the music notes to echo the swirly bits from the sketch

Materials and Tools

White smooth card blank, plus extra for the embossed layer

Bazzill card: Red, Black, Grey, White    

Dark Silver card

Embossing folder: Seasonal Music (Crafter's Companion) 

Silhouette Cameo: own templates for guitar and music notes

February LO from The Sketch File 

Thanks for popping by today

Mixing it Up a Bit

This is the card I'm sharing over on the "Get Funky and Craft" blog today

 I've used the "flat" paper designs from a Wordbook Download called "Huge Funky Love" - with this set you don't just get all you need to make a Wordbook, but also the paper designs without the lettery bits to use however you like. 

Just to mix things up a bit, I also "borrowed" one paper from the  "Fading Beauty" download set - just because I thought the pale green looked gorgeous with the pinks and browns of the Huge Funky Love ones. 

I usually have a little pile of papers waiting to be used or  leftovers from other projects and sometimes just shuffling that pile around shows up some very happy combinations!

Materials and Tools

Funky Hand Downloads: "Huge Funky Love" and
"Fading Beauty"

scrap of darker green Bazzill card
EK Success Border Punch 
Aperture cut with a Marianne Heart die
Taylored Expressions Twirly Swirly die
 Flowers created using Memory Box "Fabulous Phlox"die set
Small circle punch
Small brown pearls

All Funky Hand's "Love themed" downloads are  available throughout February for only £1 each - so a great time to stock up on downloads you may have missed - or a good time to try them out if you've not yet succumbed to the delights of digital ;)

Thanks for visiting today

Childhood (book) Heroes

Daring Cardmakers day again and....

"It's Svenja here and I'd like to invite you to take a little stroll down memory lane this week. Do you remember the time when your parents would read a good-night story for you? And then the first books you read on your own? And probably over and over again just because you loved their characters so much... 

I'd like you to create a card to commemorate this time and your

Childhood (book) Heroes. 

Be it The Famous Five or The Three Investigators, Max and Moritz or Alice in Wonderland, the girls from St. Clare's or Peter Pan and Captain Hook or someone else entirely - who were the written heroes that accompanied you through your childhood and youth?"

I'm not sure I had any books that I returned to over and over - I must have read every one of the "Secret 7" and "Famous 5" books, and I loved stories set in boarding schools - like the "Chalet School" and !Mallory Towers" books, but for my card this week, I turned to books I still love yet, for the clever stories, wonderful characters and fabulous drawings it has to be the two Winnie the Pooh books.  

....And you can forget those dreadful Disney pale imitations too - what a travesty they are - it should all be destroyed in my opinion!

Stick to the real stories told by AA Milne, and E Shepard illustrated so beautifully - why on earth would you want Pooh any other way>?

So, with my rant for the day over, here's my card

I used a template I made for my old Craft Robo years ago, but his time I thought I'd have a go at making a shaped card and add the balloon on wire so that it really "floats" above Pooh's head"

Materials and Tools

Bazzill card for bear and balloon

VeraMagic and Cats Eye Inks in brown and blue shades

Small black brad for eye

Blue wire

Silhouette machine to cut the various pieces

I'm quite pleased at the way he's turned out - I'm not going to send him to anyone, this is one for my shelf!

I thought I might as well dig out the card I made from this template originally - I still think it's cute, but that could be because I just love Winnie the Pooh and all his friends!

Please visit the DCM BLOG to see all the cards the team have made this week - and we'd love to hear about your own favourite childhood book heroes too

Thanks for visiting

Maltesers

Happy Valentines Day!

This is the box I shared on the Funky Hand Blog yesterday - another of those "must make one of those when I get a "Round Tuit"

Materials and Tools

Funky Hand Download  "I Love You Sew" printed onto white 
matte photo paper. 

Silhouette machine to cut box shape - this template is available from the Silhouette online store

MFT DieNamics Nested Hearts die set
Ribbon, Ric-rac braid and Raffia
Large brad

The paper for the "I Love You" heart detail on the lid of the box comes from the "LoveLoveLove" download - I chose this as I liked the red and black text and I think the 2 downloads can work quite well together

This box was stuffed full of Maltesers for my Other Half as they are his favourite!

Thanks for visiting today

LOVE letters!

It's Daring Cardmakers Day again and this week it's Beckie setting the challenge
What a great idea, we all thought....and then we realised how hard those letters actually were!

You are probably not surprised that it's going to be a LOVE card this week, but here is the twist ... it doesn't have to be if you don't want it to be, it could even be a birthday card of a thank you note ......

The dare this week is to use at least one item/product

 on your card beginning with each of the

 letters L.O.V and E.

What a great idea, we all thought....and then we realised how hard those letters actually were!  I started by making a list of things that started with each letter - it wasn't a long list, but I came up with a few ideas where I could use maybe 3 of the letters but not the other one.  I really really wanted my E thing to be an elephant, but I couldn't come up with how....

In the end I made this

My LOVE items are: Lace, Ombre (paper design), also Orange for the flower, Vine (Honeysuckle Vine die) and a mini Envelope

Materials and Tools

All papers: Spring Wedding Download (Funky Hand) - designs printed on white Bazzill card

White cotton Lace

ready-made mini card and envelope

Tiny orange gems, pc generated mini sentiment

Honeysuckle Vine die (Memory Box)

Heirloom Rose die (MFT DieNamics)

Blossom punch (SU)

Tiny coiled roses are hand cut

I cut the vine die a couple of times from green to give extra twirly bits to the main vine and to adding behind the various flowers.

The die was also cut in the pink papers so that I could add the dimensional flowers to the vine and have extra ones to put near the large flower. 

 Please pop over to the DCM BLOG and see how inventive the team have been this week
Thanks for visiting

Butterflies

After looking at the "Kensington Border" die (Memory Box) for ages, I finally went and bought it - probably because using the Cosmo border last week reminded me just how pretty, and versatile these border dies are.

So without further ado (ie without leaving it sitting in the box for weeks before using it) here's another card  made for the current LO on The Sketch File, and some lovely Funky Hand papers that were already on my desk - printed out for some project or other that I can't even remember now!
 

 

Materials and Tools

Papers: Little Princess download (Funky Hand)

White Bazzill card for printing

Various pearls and enamel dots, Peachy-Pink Seam Bimding

"Kensington Border" die (Memory Box)

Scalloped Circle Nestie (Spellbinders)

Decal sticker sentiment

Here's the sketch - I twisted it 90degrees clockwise

 

Luscious Little Layers sketch from The Sketch File

I love those papers, the colour palette is just beautiful, like a great big bowl full of Italian ice cream and sorbet ;)
I made the sentiment piece quite thick by cutting several layers of the die

Thanks for looking, please pop by again soon - it would be great if you'd leave a comment :)