Xmas 2015

Copyright

I hope you enjoy reading this blog and find inspiration and ideas from what you have seen here but I would ask you to please respect my copyright and not use my pictures for publishing as your own work, or for entry into challenges.

Thursday 25 August 2011

DL - landscape card

A friend of a friend is being honoured with the freedom of the City of London.  My friend wanted a congratulations card that somehow incoporated the logo and the Freedom ceremony.

 I cut two strips that were 4inches by 8 inches and one strip that was 4 inches by 10 inches.  I scored the last strip in each side at the 1 inch mark so that I could then glue the two side strips onto it.

This made a DL card, but opening landscape.  I embossed the front with the swirls embossing folder, and covered the join with spotty ribbon.  I embossed the greeting with the Cuttlebug onto the same white card and sprayed it with Crafters Companion spray and sparkle in silver.  This was stuck onto the front of the card using foam tape, over the ribbon.On the right hand side of the card front I used an EK Success punch along the edge, and stuck a black ribbon tab on the centre, with a brad.  

On the inside left cover, I used a downloaded copy of the logo cut out with a nestie label die to cover the join in the ribbon.  On the right hand side flap, I used promarkers to make a backing layer, and stuck onto that the Freeman's oath. 
Inside the card, I stuck an insert with a saying on it.  All three folded in to make a card that fitted a DL envelope perfectlhy!

Thursday 18 August 2011

CD Sunday Challenge - Ovals

Everyone has their favourite summer flower and for me it's the poppy.  This image came from the Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Joanna Sheen - and came complete with it's own backing paper.  I didn't have the right colour red to make the layers, so used plain white card coloured with promarkers. 

The bow is made from organza ribbon, and was tied round the poppy paper before the topper was put onto the DL card.

I am entering this card into the CD Sundays Challenge - Only Ovals.

Friday 5 August 2011

Birthday beefcake...

Today's card is a birthday card for a very vain 26 year old - the brother of one of my colleagues at work.

Techniques used are a combination of printing images snagged from online, a digistamp from Mo Manning that was coloured in using promarker skin tones, and embossing using the Creative Expressions brickwall embossing folder in my 'bug.

The base card was white, and I printed onto cardstock the England badge background.  This was then trimmed and put into the embossing folder. The brick edges were then highlighted using Cool Grey 1 promarker.

The brick embossed sheet was trimmed and the edges rounded off and then mounted on red mirri card.

More red mirri card was used to mount the happy birthday sentiment.
My strong man was shaped and then attached to the front of the "wall" using pinflair glue.  Finishing touches were the two flags that represented the family heritage.

Monday 1 August 2011

In the garden

 I am entering this card into Sentimental Sundays - Challenge 66 and Polkadoodles week 30 challenge - in an english country garden

This card is a double twisted easel, incorporating stamping, colouring with promarkers and spectrum noir pens, die cuts and marbled paper.  It fits into a standard DL envelope.

The base card was plain white cardstock, measuring 8 inches square, and scored in half. I used marbled paper (marbled using the My craft studio marbling inks) for the base of the card.  The base was decorated with two swirls (cuttlebug die) and the stopper was white card with the edges distressed in shabby shutters, and matted with the same paper I used for the toppers.  A sentiment  from hero arts was stamped on the centre of it, and the two corners were a clarity stamp.

 Each of the easels were 4 inches square, with the corners rounded.  I distressed the edges using shabby shutters distress ink.  I then used a nestie to provide a shaped layer in complementary paper, and matted the two toppers onto that.

The first topper (on the left) was one of the free downloads from the Sentimental Sunday website, with the edges distressed using shabby shutters, and the flowers coloured using a mixture of promarkers and spectrum noir pens.

The second topper (on the right) was a sarah jane clear stamp.  I coloured the image in using a combination of promarkers and spectrum noir pens, and again distressed the edges using shabby shutters.  The small butterfly was from my stash.

I didn't put a specific sentiment on there - it can be a birthday, a get well, or just a thinking of you card that way.

Christmas Robin

I know, we are finally getting some warm weather!  But I had a fancy to play with some of my Sheena Douglas stamps and have a go at a card with no layers.  Scary!  I did have a plan, though.  If any of the colouring or stamping had gone majorly wrong, I would have layered another version over the top!

In the event, though, it all went well.

I did the stamping first, using a memento black ink pad - this was because I wanted to use my promarkers.  The sentiment was stamped in the bottom right hand corner.  On reflection, I think I could have got that a bit more straight, but it wasn't bad enough to have to cover it up!

The foliage stamp was used to create the effect of a tree.  It should perhaps have come further out - the bit the bird is sitting on looks a bit sad, but I didn't want to take anything away from the main image of the robin.

The background was shaded using a combination of faded jeans distress ink, and one of the big and juicy pads.  To get the moon, I used a mask made from a circle punched from a post it note .  I used the inkylicious blending dusters to get the light effect - I find I am a bit too heavy handed with the cut and dry foam...

I was pleased with the way the robin turned out.  My blending can be a bit hit and miss, to be honest.  I need to practice more!  My mum loves colouring and has it down to a fine art but I am more of a novice.

To finish it off, I stamped a greeting across the moon and then sprayed the whole thing with some silver spray and sparkle from crafters companion.