Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 158 - A special woman

Marlene is hosting today, and the theme she will be judging is For a Special Woman. As Mothers Day (in the UK) is just a couple of weeks away, we would love to see your cards for a Special Woman. So Mother's Day cards/creations, or cards/creations for any woman who is special, Daughter, Wife, Friend etc. will be fine. You can enter anything you fancy, it doesn't have to just be cards, as long as it meets the challenge, and doesn't exceed the 15 total challenges entered rule!

We are sponsored for this challenge by

WOODWARE CRAFT COLLECTION

With a prize of £12.00 to spend at your favourite Woodware Stockist, either in store or on line.

Woodware are a Yorkshire based family owned business, as well as distributing Dreamweaver Stencils and Stampendous Stamps we have a wonderful range of stamps designed for us by Francoise Read and Jane Gill. We also scour the world for new and innovative products for the crafty card maker, and have a great range of punches and tools of the trade, to find stockists in your area or to see the range visit the website www.woodware.co.uk.

As a rule, I don't really make overly fussy cards.  I admire the skill that goes into making them, but I'm never quite happy with my own efforts.  This card is much more my cup of tea!  I made it for a good friend who had reached the big 50 birthday. 

My base card was a scallop edge 6 x 6 white card.  Onto this, I layered a mat of plain pink and put onto that my topper, which I had stamped with this floral shoe stamp (Chloe's??) and simply coloured it with my promarkers.

Before I stuck the topper down, I wrapped some white chiffon ribbon around the top left corner..  Onto this I stuck a double bow made from the same ribbon, and in the centre of that I suck a white flower, coloured with some distress ink.  My friend wasn't 100% happy about the number of birthdays (lol), so I included it as  a very teeny centre to the big flower! 

Finally, I stamped a small sentiment on the pink base card and stuck that on with a foam pad, and put a couple of stamped flowers  from another impression of the shoe stamp that I had coloured and cut out onto the shoe to give it some texture.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 157 - Love, love, love

Julie is hosting our Love, Love, Love Challenge. As Valentine's Day is just around the corner we want to see your 'love' themed creations. 

You can enter anything you fancy, it doesn't have to just be cards, as long as it meets the challenge, and doesn't exceed the 15 total challenges entered rule!

My own project this time was something I made at a recent craft retreat run by Anna Marie Designs - and it is mixed media.  I am assuming it is for home decor - it's definitely too big to go on a card.  I'm not 100% sure I like it - but I am a firm believer in trying everything, because you never know when a crafty technique will sneak up and hook you!

The base is an MDF heart shape, with a matching frame that was glued onto it.  We then put on our rubber gloves and covered scrap ribbon, hession, gauze and various other materials in a black gunky stuff called structuriser.  It was MESSY.  Having covered all of the heart with the bits, we left it to dry.

The following day, we coated any parts of the MDF showing with black gesso and left that to dry too.

Then the fun part - colouring it!  We used on this occasion Viva Decor Inka Gold colours, but I would imagine you could use any creamy paste or gilding wax to get the same effect.  Finally, we went over the top randomly with a bit of pinflair on our finger and then sprinkled some crystal glass over the top.  

Unfortunately, it doesn't really show very well in the picture (and trust me, I tried very hard to get a good shot!) but I hope you get the idea.

I have come to the conclusion that super messy is not my thing - paints yes, the gunky structuriser?  I think I'll give it a miss...

And as an added extra, I thought I'd add a card I made using a shape from my Brother Scan n Cut.

This was a 6 x 6 black card base with an overlay in white with hearts cut out.  I sized the hearts down slightly and then cut them in red and stuck them inside the apertures.

Finally, I stamped some suitable words on the red hearts and added a hand cut tag with a sentiment on it.

Inside it just says Happy Valentines Day.

Keeping it simple

Last week I made a card for my friends birthday.  My mission to use stash I have bought continues, and I found these white cards with the die cut edge in the drawer.  I used a Woodware Stamp on a piece of white stamping card and stamped it in Black archival ink.  Then, I coloured the centres of the flowers and the leaves with promarkers, and coloured everything with one of the new spectrum noir clear sparkle pens. 

I gave the part of the card under the diecut a bit of glitz by using a Nuovo Glue pen to cover the area and then covered that with glamour dust.  I did the same thing in the black line border for the stamp.

Before I stuck the topper on with 1mm foam pads, I edged it with the yellow promarker.  Finally, I die cut a sentiment and coloured that with the same yellow.

This was a really easy card to make, and very effective.  I really like woodware stamps for this.

#156 Punches and/or Dies - Crafty Cardmakers challenge

Maike is hosting our challenge today and the theme is Punches and/or Dies

You are welcome to enter anything as long as you have used either punches or dies, or even both, and please don't forget to enter no more than 15 challenges including this one.

For my card I used my tattered lace circle stepper die and the free papers that came in a magazine for the layers, along with a Phill Martin paper pad.

I like a stepper card, because you can decorate them as plainly or elaborately as you like.

For my decorations, I used some die cut tattered lace flowers, that I coloured with my distress inks.  

The topper was from a cd (crafters companion, I believe, but I am not sure without trawling through them all to match the sheet I had printed out).