Challenge 83 - Belated Birthday

Apologies for the colour quality of the photo - it's more muted than this!!!

 Our challenge to you today at Crafty Cardmakers is to create a card for a belated birthday, and is hosted by Kim, who says:

As I am always notoriously late with sending my cards it seems appropriate for me to choose a Belated Birthday challenge. Any image, Stamped or Digi, will do but your card MUST include a sentiment indicating that the card is for a belated Birthday, for example - Sorry I missed it, Have a very Happy Unbirthday, Better late than never, Your birthday came, your birthday went, here's the card I should have sent!!

So see what you can come up with to amuse us, or just a straightforward belated birthday wishes will do, but remember it does need a sentiment as outlined above to qualify.

For my card, I used a digi image from our sponsors. 

Also sponsoring us this week is SIR STAMPALOT

I used a plain white 6 x 6 card base and onto that layered a sheet of burgundy paper from my stash which I had embossed with a Couture Creations embossing folder.

I coloured my image with promarkers (but if you look closely at the skirt you will see where I accidentally used a deep red aquamarker by mistake - oops??).  I had already cut it out with (I believe) an X cut die and coloured everything else in, so after working on it a bit with more promarkers, left it alone!

I edged the image topper with some victorian velvet distress ink and stuck it onto my base using foam pads.  Over one corner I used a swirl from the spellbinder jewel flowers and flourishes die set, and some punched leaves cut from scrap.  I used some pre-bought flowers as the base for my middle flower, but topped it with tonic punches.  The smaller flowers were made from tonic punches also, and in the centre of each flower I set a gem. The greeting was hand written, onto a Woodware clear magic stamp.

Finally, I added a ribbon bow made from ribbon in my stash.

The sentiment inside the card reads "I am so sorry... it took me so long to get ready for your birthday, I forgot to post your card!!"

I am entering this card into 
the "Anything Goes" challenge at Challenges4everybody 
the "Girls, Girls, Girls" challenge at dreamvalleychallenges

Challenge 82 - Fairytale make a scene

Well, I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, and are feeling refreshed and ready for the new year!

The challenge this week at Crafty Cardmakers has been set by Eva, and she has asked us to make a Fairytale scene.

Now, making a scene was always my mum's thing, not mine.  But never ventured, and all that...

Anyway, after several abortive attempts to use the magic brayer so beloved of Barbara Gray, I gave up and went back to MY beloved inkylicious duster brushes and some cut and dry foam!

I used a 6" x 6" square plain card base, and layered onto that some bright green card.   I then made up my background, using a 5" square of Neenah card, and a combination of distress inks and the Waterfall Big and Juicy Ink Pad.  The hills were made using the torn paper technique to create a mask and I used the cut and dry pad to get a more intense colour than you get with the blending brushes.

Now, what I should have done (like any sensible person) was to stamp my fairy and then mask her before doing the background, but instead I had to do it the hard way (duh!) and as a result after colouring with promarkers,  she has one very shadowed leg!  I made the wings sparkle using some twinkling H2o paint and glittered the "fairy dust" using a quickie glue pen and some glamour dust.

All the stamps used were from my stash, but alas, were from before I started to make a note of what make they were.  The sentiment, however,  was a clarity stamp. 

The last two touches was the Marianne swirl in the bottom left corner, cut from cream card and coloured with distress ink, and the ribbon bow in the top right corner, which started out white, but got coloured the right green with a promarker pen.

I'm not 100% about the swirl in the photograph - the colour seems a bit off to me - but it's on there now and in real life it does sort of blend with the fairy wings!

THE STAMPMAN

 We are kindly sponsored for this challenge by The Stampman (and Lady of course!) who are offering the winner a £10 voucher for their store, you can spend this online, in the shop or if you're lucky enough to see them at a show!  They have a ton of items in store, enough to tickle any crafty tastebud. 

DI'S DIGI DOWNLOADS

$10 GIFT VOUCHER

I have been drawing since a child and studied graphics at College many years ago, I now work as a Medical photographer part time but my love was always drawing. I started cardmaking about 4yrs ago when I bought my daughter a cardmaking kit which we did together, but I’m afraid I got the bug! My daughter preferred scrapbooking. I then started looking online at other blogs and this then became my passion and I loved sharing my cards with likeminded people.

I love stamping and loved finding images, but sometimes I could not find what I wanted so I started to draw myself. This then has become my second addiction and I have never looked back, I love thinking of new images, and its just fabulous to see others take them and make them into beautiful works of art. Long may it continue!