Blog Candy!

CuteCottageCrafts have a couple of places left on their all day colouring class - why not go and have a look?  If you leave a comment and link to their page, you could win this gorgeous Blog Candy.  What are you waiting for????

Challenge 102 at Crafty Cardmakers - Shabby Chic

Welcome to our latest challenge at Crafty Cardmakers, hosted by BettyC, who has chosen the theme 'Shabby Chic'.

I'm never sure if my cards are shabby chic or not when I make them, so hopefully this one does fit the bill!  For my base card I used a plain white heavyweight cardstock cut to be 5.75 inches square.

I cut a burgundy diecut "base" for my image from some scrap card.  I cut the next size down out of some white scrap for the image, which I stamped twice.  The top image was cut round before colouring and the edges of both were coloured with aged mahogany distress ink.  The top image was coloured using spectrum noir alcohol pens.  I normally use my promarkers, but have been conscious that I have the speccies and never use them!

Before layering with some floral papers from my stash, I distressed the edges of the card and the lighter paper with aged mahogany distress ink.  Before sticking the backing papers to the card base, I wrapped some burgundy ribbon around it (I know it looks scarlet or bright red in the picture, but it was really the same colour as the diecut base!) and tied a second piece in a knot.   Once the papers were in place, I attached a punch cut butterfly - base was scrap card coloured with the distress ink, and the top layer was cut from an offcut of the bottom paper layer.  I stuck three pearls along the body line.

In the bottom right hand corner I built up a group of paper flowers that was already made in my stash pot (colouring some of the white ones with the distress ink).  I used a diecut from my scrap box to go in the top left hand corner.  Finally, I added some more pearls to "hold the image down" onto the burgundy card cut to shape with a spellbinders die.

I haven't put a sentiment on this yet, but think it could be used for a birthday, anniversary or get well.

We are sponsored by

 MILK COFFEE DIGITAL STAMPS

WITH A PRIZE OF 5 DIGIS FROM THEIR STORE

Milk Coffee Stamps is a digital image shop specialising in cute and girly images. We provide high quality digital images with high resolution so you could resize at a big enough size for your project. We have many different image styles; sophisticated lady, cute girl, whimsical image, cute stuff, fairytale creature, and many other varied themes so they can fit many different crafting styles.

And also by

SIR STAMPALOT

with this fabulous prize:-

Sir Stampalot is a retail shop and online website that specialises in stamps, die cutting and paper-crafting goodies.  We try to offer exceptional delivery times on your orders as well as keeping our stock fresh, new and exciting!  Our dedicated team of card makers means we have a wonderful, inspirational online card gallery with many more cards still to upload!  Sir Stampalot ships internationally as well as domestic so why not check us out if you haven’t already – www.sirstampalot.co.uk.
 Happy Crafting!

Here's a heads up...

Clearly besotted stamps have a birthday promotion on at the moment.  Use their code before 8th October and you get 10% off.  Their stamp and die combo's look brilliant - I have ordered the snowglobe stamps and die and will be back for more when I have more funds.

Edited to add:   How cool...when the goods are delivered, they are wrapped like a present - look!!

Anniversary card

My friend C has a really bad habit of asking me to make cards at the very last minute... This time she needed an anniversary card for her husband - in 2 days time!

I find it hard to come up with cards for men at the best of times, and with a shortened timescale decided to keep it clean and simple.

I used a plain white card base, which I layered with red card.  Then I used one of my new Die D-lites from Spellbinders to cut out the filligree heart in the centre of a white square.  This showed through the red from underneath.  The top heart was cut using both elements from the die set in the same red as the base layer.

I stamped the banner and cut it out from the white card, but had no sentiments that would easily fit.  So I turned to my trusty peel offs.  They were in silver though, and I wanted them to be red... Thank goodness for Promarkers!  I used Poppy to colour the sentiments, and the three small hearts in the top right hand corner.

And because it still looked a bit unfinished, I used the thin nib on the promarker to make some faux stitching around the edge.

I am entering this card into the following challenge:

papercreatorscrafts Challenge 15 - Dies or Punches

Bertie the Snowman

Back at Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 99, one of the prizes was a rubberstamp called Bertie the Snowman.  I recently did a class at In2crafting where we used it - here is the result!

The stamp was stamped onto plain white cardstock using a memento ink pad.  He (and the penguin hats) was coloured in using coloured pencils.  I used glossy accents on the nose and feet, and some black accent to make the eyes and buttons stand out.

The image was mounted onto red card and then layered onto plain white card base.  The "ribbon" frame was done by hand using a fineline marker pen.

Quick and simple...

Crafty Cardmakers challenge 101 - Cute and Furry

Welcome to our latest challenge, hosted by me this time and I have chosen the theme 'Cute and Furry'

I would like to see the main focal point of your creation be something that is cute and furry. It can be a digi stamp, stamp, photographic image, but must have fur and be cute.

For my card I have chosen to use a topper and some background papers from the Crafters Companion Moreheads CD.  I love this little pup - and he is ideal for this birthday card which I needed to make quite quickly because all the main elements of the card are on the sheet you print out.

The base card was cut to be square (it's about 5 3/4 inches) and was a nice thick cardstock.  Onto that I layered a docrafts backing sheet in a mauve, which matched the iris in the picture perfectly.

Next was the components from the printed off sheet - the base layer was printed onto matte paper, and the topper part onto semi gloss photo paper.  I added some gems and paper flowers from my stash to finish it off.  The hardest part was cutting the small scallop around the topper edge - but even so this was a really quick card to make and sometimes, that is what you need!

Good luck with your cards - I look forward to seeing your creations.

We are sponsored by 
DI'S DIGISTAMPS
with a $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! 

and
THE STAMPMAN 

 We are kindly sponsored for this challenge by The Stampman (and Lady of course!) who are ofering 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 taste bud. 

Winged things - pondery thoughts about our cards

When I was doing my card for the challenge this week at Crafty Cardmakers, the first one I made was this.  But I didn't like it when it was finished.

I am not sure what I don't like - perhaps the green mat? And I think the colouring was off, too.  So what to do with this?

I've put it in my box of made cards anyway.  When the box is full I take it in to work and if anyone asks me if I have any cards, I say I do and they can rummage through.

What's weird, though, is that sometimes they will pick a card like this, that I don't like and they love it.

So what I think I am saying is, don't ever give up on your cards.  Even if you don't like the finished result, someone else may.  And even if it didn't come out the way you wanted, you have learned something to bear in mind for the future.  In my case, acid green is not my thing...

Challenge 100 - Winged things

Welcome to our latest challenge at Crafty Cardmakers where we would like to see Winged Things.  Your project must have something with wings as a major focal point. Not a tiny butterly charm, or a small bee in the corner of an image, the wings need to be obviously part of the focal point. Fairies, angels, LARGE butterflies, birds etc. would qualify. 

My card came about when I needed a "quick win" and utilised quite a lot of things I had already got in my stash box (backing mat, butterflies and sentiment). 

The base card was brown DL size, and the backing mat was embossed with a cuttlebug embossing folder (script) and distressed with vintage photo distress inks. I used oval nesties for the photograph and the mat and layers in the centre. The two butterflies  were spellbinders dies, also distressed with vintage photo. The sentiment was a bought one. 

 I was really pleased with the way this came out.

We are sponsored by 

CRAFTS AND ME

with three digis of the winner's choice from their great range

AND ALSO 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.

Our design team are playing along with the challenge so check out our blog, which is there for inspiration at www.woodware.co.uk/blog.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 99 - Christmas Snow and Ice

Welcome to Crafty Cardmakers latest challenge, hosted by Josephine, who has chosen the theme of 'Christmas Snow and Ice'. 

As the hot weather draws to a close, she would like to see us preparing for Winter with some Christmas Snow and Ice.

Your creation must include either a representation of snow or ice, plus a Christmas theme in order to qualify for the Winner or Top 5 slots

Christmas is probably the time of year when we send the most cards, at least in one go! For my card this time, I decided to continue my quest to use up some of the stash I already had from previous years and so went on a treasure hunt through my "bits" box.

I used a 6 x 6 inch square card base with a texture, which I ran through my cuttlebug in an old Docrafts embossing folder.  This gave me icy snowflakes around a centre framed area. To make the snowflakes pop, I used my trusty distress ink (tumbled glass), but only around the edge.  It hasn't come out particularly well in the photograph, but I used a quickie glue pen and some glamour dust to add an icy sparkle both to the snowflakes and the frame.

Next, I used a small small topper from a hunkydory kit of (I think) 2 years ago, which went into the centre of the frame, after I had added some "falling snow" with the quickie glue pen and some glitter. Lastly, I added a sentiment  embellishment from the same kit.

One card down- about 40 or so to go!!!

This time...

We are sponsored by
DI'S DIGISTAMPS
 with a $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! 

and 

HOBBY ART

with these two gorgeous stamps:-

Archie and Pals

Bertie The Snowman 

As a family business we're a friendly, helpful, bunch at Hobby Art.  All our stamps are designed by us and manufactured in Britain.
Look at the gallery on my blog - jennymayes.com - for lots of card ideas using the Hobby Art range.
We're pleased to sponsor the Crafty Cardmakers Challenge and look forward to seeing the entries.   
Good luck everyone.  Jenny and all. X

Birthday card

Todays effort is a birthday card.  This was made entirely from my stash - and the stamp is a good few years old!

My brief was to make a card for a lady who loved her stripey teeshirts.

I used a pearlescent card for my square base card, and matted onto that a square of stripey paper from my stash.

To one side I put some brown ribbon to cover the edge and provide definition to the small stamped teeshirts I cut out from the same stripey paper.

I stamped the image onto the back of the pearlescent card, and coloured it with coloured pencils.  Around the edge of the card I used Pumice Stone distress ink, which matched the yellowy beige colour of the yellow striped paper really well.  Finally I printed out the sentiments on my printer.

Having already taken this picture, I then added three small gemstones in the top right hand corner of the base card!

Gilded fish...

This week I did a card for a fisherman - it was a digi image from LaPashe, and I was pleased with my colouring - I think my shading is definitely improving.  But I didn't like the fish, it looked flat.

Then I had a lightbulb moment, and thought "gilding flakes"!!!

Using a quickie glue pen I coloured in the fish again, and waited for it to go clear.  Then I used some morris dancer gilding flakes from Indigo blu, buffed the image with my scootchie sponge and hey presto!  A really lifelike fish!

The photo I took under the ottlite was the best one, as that really brought out the gleaming fish.

Otherwise, it was a straightforward card - 6" square base card, layered with some green textured card from my stash.  I did some faux stitching around the edge and used punches for the circular sentiment (handwritten..) and a stamped Happy Birthday on some scrap card for the other one.

Sympathy card

I was recently asked to make a sympathy card by my friend J, whose friend's mother had died in her 90s.  The brief was that it needed to have a cross, and yellow roses.

I used centura pearl cardstock for the card, making a 7" x 5" base.  I ran a piece of the silver toned card through my Grand Calibur in my 7 x 5 lattice embossing folder to make a base topper, layering it with some plain black.

Onto this base topper, I added a lattice diecut shape cut from the same card, but backed with a different type of pearlescent card which had a more distinctly cream tone from my stash.

I then cut out a cross using a spellbinders die, which I embellished with pearls and put that onto the top of the trellis arch.

I made two small and 1 large roses and leaves from the pearlescent card, using two different size 6 petal paper punches.  They were coloured with distress inks before being made up and I also included some paper flowers from my stash with some pearls in the centre.  Finally, I added a small narrow black ribbon bow.

The sentiment was a rubber stamped banner stamped with versamark and embossed with fine gold detail powder.

The card was to be given, not posted, which was just as well as the rose made it too big for an envelope - instead I made a plain white box, with a diecut aperture that I filled with acetate.

Crafty Cardmakers challenge 97 - 1 image, 2 patterned papers and 3 embellishments

Welcome to the latest challenge at Crafty Cardmakers, hosted by Elaine who has chosen the theme '1,2,3'

This means projects along the theme of 1,2,3 
1 image, 
2 patterned papers and 
3 embellishments

For my card, I have used a gorgeous backing paper and image from our sponsors, Paper Shelter, coloured with Promarkers and a coordinating background paper from my stash (I think it was from a Making Cards magazine). 

My 3 embellishments are: pearls, flowers and a ribbon edging.  

I decided to make a twisted easel card (one of my favourite card folds) and used a single A4 sheet cut down to 6 inches when folded, with a pearlescent peach coloured card for the image topper.

On the base of the card, I used my complementary backing paper, overstamped with a sentiment and some flowers and distressed around the edges with Marigold distress ink.  I edged this backing sheet with a flexible gold peel off.  In the top right hand corner I glued three white flowers, with a pearl in the centre of each.

To make the stop, I used a part of the backing paper cut out with a circle punch and mounted it onto peach pearlescent card.  I used the flexible peel off on this too, and finally edged it with a faux stitch all around the edge.  This embellishment was used as the "stop" for the card.

On the front flap, I used the backing paper from Paper Shelter, and put a ribbon trim down the right hand side.  I did some faux stitching all round the edge of the card using the fine tip of a promarker in brown.

The image itself was coloured using promarkers and was then mounted onto a peach pearlescent coloured card from my stash.  This was stuck onto the card front in the bottom right hand corner only, so that it would swivel and stand up.

Finally, I stamped a greeting onto the peach pearlescent card and stuck that onto the bottom of the image.

We are sponsored by 

 THE PAPER SHELTER

with a $20 gift certificate for their fabulous store

 If you are looking for fun, cute and lovely digi stamps for your paper-crafting or web design projects, The Paper Shelter is your one-stop boutique! This growing catalog of high-quality digi stamps with many different kind of options offers a multitude of themes such as everyday items, holidays, special occasions, children, adorable characters and creatures. Stamps are available in standard black and white line art, as well as in pre-colored format. Images are wonderful for coloring and make perfect additions to greeting cards and scrapbook albums. In "The Paper Shelter" you'll also find great other resources for all crafts (or digital) projects, like Paper Packs, Printables, Accessory sheet, etc. 

and 

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.

Our design team are playing along with the challenge so check out our blog, which is there for inspiration at www.woodware.co.uk/blog.

Crafty Cardmakers challenge 96 - Birthday

Welcome to the latest challenge at Crafty Cardmakers, hosted by Lin, who has chosen the theme of 'Birthday'.

As it's our birthday, 4 years since our very first article was published and Crafty Cardmakers was born, Lin would like to see your birthday creations to celebrate our birthday. 

I chose for this challenge a card I made recently for one of my friends.  The design of the card is another that was inspired by a demonstration of crafters companion products by Nandia at In2Crafting, at Wickford.

I used my favourite 6" square card base, and a piece of blue card from my stash for the base layer.  This was run through my bug in an embossing folder (sorry - forget which one!) and I took the top off using my sanding block.  

For the main image, I used some stamps from Crafters Companion.  First, I stamped the image onto a piece of super smooth card and coloured it using my promarkers.   Then, I drew a square, but leaving the image protruding over the edge of where the line would be.  The other three sides were cut straight, but I cut round the stamped image, so it looked like it was decoupaged onto the white square.  In the bottom right hand corner, I stamped my sentiment.

Using a sissiz butterfly die and stamp set, I cut out two butterflies, and layered one on top of the other.   I applied glitter to the bottom layer and stuck the butterfly in the top right hand corner of my white card.

Finally, using a blue promarker with a finetip, I drew by hand a wiggly line to make a square within the white square.

I then matted the white square onto a piece of contrasting card, chosen to match the green of the leaves, and then layered the whole thing onto my base card.

We are sponsored by 

DI'S DIGISTAMPS

with a $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 like minded 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!

and also by

HOBBY ART

with this fabulous prize:-

CS028D Spring Clear Stamp Set

 

 As a family business we're a friendly, helpful, bunch at Hobby Art.  All our stamps are designed by us and manufactured in Britain. Look at the gallery on my blog -jennymayes.com - for lots of card ideas using the Hobby Art range.  We're pleased to sponsor the Crafty Cardmakers Challenge and look forward to seeing the entries. 
Good luck everyone.  Jenny and all. X 

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 94 - Steampunk

Steampunk is the theme this week at Crafty Cardmakers and is hosted by Julie.

Now this is not normally my thing, so I wasn't totally sure what is included.  I seem to remember seeing lots of cogs and clocks on other people's designs though, so that is what I used for my card!

This time, I went back to basics, and more or less everything was created from scratch, with the exception of the key and the ribbon embellishments.  Everything else was stamped and coloured with adirondack/distress inks.

I used a 6" square card base in cream, and on that I layered a piece of brown card from my stash.  Then I cut a piece of white card slightly smaller and using a cogs and gears mask, coloured it using espresso adirondack ink.  It came out nice and fuzzy, and even more so when I had spritzed it with some mica spray!

I used a heatgun to dry it, then overstamped with the inkylicious worn paint stamp in Old Paper distress ink, which gave it a lovely aged look.

Then I overstamped again, using the espresso inkpad, with my other images (indigo blu stamps) cogs, keys and clock numerals.  By using different inks, and intensity it almost looks as though the cog images are decoupaged, but they are in fact all on the one base card.

The sentiment in the centre was also an indigo blu stamp, and so, so true!!

Lastly, I used a scrap of ribbon from my stash and applied it like a rosette ribbon to my card base, using a hot glue gun and a gold candie to simulate a brad.  I did the same thing with a small brass key - put some bakers twine through the top and applied the hot glue, stuck the twine in it and covered it up with another gold candie.

So, all done with just two ink pads, white card and some mica spritz.  Neat, huh?  And, I actually think it is ideal for a man's card, which is my card type nemesis... win, win!

For this challenge, we are sponsored by

DI'S DIGISTAMPS

 with a

$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!

and

  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, 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 taste bud.

Craft classes - In2Crafting, Wickford

Ever since my mum died, and I lost my crafting "partner", I have been going to the occasional class at In2Crafting, my favourite craft shop in Wickford.

The sessions are really good value - £10 for a morning or afternoon, and includes all materials and a cup of tea or coffee!  A new list should be ready soon for July onwards - I would thoroughly recommend you try it out if you are in the area!

The last class I went to was using the Hougie Board - and I was really impressed with what I managed to make.

The first item was a card attached to a box, which had small drawers for trinkets/sweets.  It was surprisingly straightforward, and looked very classy.  The photograph doesn't really do it justice...

The second item was a Pink box, which again was dead easy to make, and contained some small 3" square note cards, an ideal gift!

In fact, it was such a good idea, I have made another one as a thank you for a good friend who sent me a small present today to cheer me up (it was the anniversary of my mum's death recently, and I have been a bit low).

I put six small cards in my box - which I made using hunkydory cardstock.  I hope she likes them!

Another tri shutter card

Blimey, I went for years without doing a tri shutter card, and now I've done two in the space of two weeks!!

This one was done for my friend J's "mother in law" (her fella's mum) who was 80 this weekend.  J had a number of photos she would like to have included, but it was hard to fit them all onto a normal shaped card.  Just as well I did the experimental tri shutter card then, wasn't it?  All worked out splendidly.

I changed the photos from black and white, sepia and full colour to all sepia so they matched, and mounted them onto pearlescent brown card.  Both photograph and mount were cut using a spellbinders die.  I used a gold embossed card to provide the background mats, and cut the happy birthday greeting from the same brown card.  I added some stick on "nail heads" in gold, and some flowers and butterflies from my stash.

Finally, in my campaign to use up my peel offs, I edged the gold mats with flexible bobble peel offs, added some corners to the plain parts of the base card, and used the numbers to make up the age.

Best thing?  It fitted (just) into a standard 5 x 7 card, but bearing in mind the flowers stood out, I made a 1/2 inch envelobox for it.

Crafty Cardmakers challenge 93 - Father's Day

The latest challenge at Crafty Cardmakers is hosted by Feebs, who has chosen the theme of a  'Father's Day'

As it's Father's Day here in the UK on 16th June Feebs would  like to see anything you've created for, or have been inspired to make, by the father figure in your life. 

It could be anything from a card, a scrapbook page, a knitted scarf or a piece of altered art. It does not have to be specifically for Father's Day.

I find it much easier to make feminine cards - it's hard making cards for men - finding suitable images and colour schemes/layouts taunt me and I always end up putting it off.

However, for this card, I used an image from one of our sponsors, The Paper Shelter.  I coloured this cute cowboy using my coloured pencils - I have been using this medium more and more lately, after years of neglecting them!    Choosing the card to layer was more difficult, and I ended up going with matching the blue of my cowboy's outfit, and the brown of his shoes and hair.

I used a die to cut out the shape once coloured, and then layered that onto a piece of blue Core'dinations card, which I cut with a spellbinders die.  Through the small holes, I threaded some yellow and white bakers twine to give a stitching effect, and which I also used in the tags.  Through the big slots I used some white ribbon.

For my base layer, I used some browny red core'dinations card, which I ran through my bug using the creative expressions brick wall embossing folder.

I used scrap card to make my tags, and yes, as I am desperately trying to use them up,  I used peel offs for the greeting!!

This time we are sponsored by 

THE PAPER SHELTER

with a $20 gift certificate for their fabulous store

If you are looking for fun, cute and lovely digi stamps for your paper-crafting or web design projects, The Paper Shelter is your one-stop boutique! This growing catalog of high-quality digi stamps with many different kind of options offers a multitude of themes such as everyday items, holidays, special occasions, children, adorable characters and creatures. Stamps are available in standard black and white line art, as well as in pre-colored format. Images are wonderful for coloring and make perfect additions to greeting cards and scrapbook albums. In "The Paper Shelter" you'll also find great other resources for all crafts (or digital) projects, like Paper Packs, Printables, Accessory sheet, etc. 

And also by

Woodware

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 92 - Tri shutter card with stamped image and a twist

 

This weeks challenge at Crafty Cardmakers wasn't just a challenge to everyone out there - it was a challenge to the majority of the Design Team too!  

So welcome to our latest challenge, hosted by Annette,  who wanted to see a tri-shutter card with a stamped image, either digital or rubber, with an added twist of using the colours Blue, Yellow and Green. 

I'd seen tri-shutter cards before, but had never made one myself, or had the first clue how to begin.  So I took myself off to google and got myself a set of instructions and set to work. The first one was in thin card just to see how the folds went, and was discarded.

The second went really well - and then I read the challenge requirements again and realised that my black and pink masterpiece, using up some hunkydory toppers from my stash bore no resemblance to what was asked for.  This is an important part of entering challenges - read the requirements carefully... big FAIL on my part!!  

So I started again - this time bearing in mind the colours and the need for a stamped image!  The folds weren't that difficult once you have done them a couple of times and I used some pale lemon 12" x 12" card cut down to half size for my base card.  This makes getting the three parts the same size much easier, as you are working with 12 inches and not 11 and a bit and a blob (to quote Kay Rutter of Hougie board fame).

The green leaf backing card did come from my hunkydory stash (or it might have been kanban - difficult to tell when the packaging is gone) and I backed that with a dark blue/green plain card on the two side panels.  On the front panel, before mounting it onto the dark blue/green card I wrapped some blue/white bakers twine around it and tied it in a small bow.  In the centre panel I used the dark blue/green card with a stamped sentiment that I cut out with a nestie and distressed with chipped sapphire.

I cut small strips of the leaf backing card to go along the bottom and top centre panel, and used some paper flowers and pearls from my stash to embellish.  For my stamped image, I used a Jayne Nestorenko stamp I got free with a magazine for the main one, and coloured it with my coloured pencils.  I cut it out using an oval nestie, and did some faux stitching around the edge.  This was stuck onto the front panel with foam pads and a small dab of pinflair glue gel.  For my second image, I used a docrafts butterfly, cut out after being coloured blue with my pencils and glittered.

Sometimes, stretching yourself for the challenges really does come up trumps - this is a card fold I haven't done before, but it did actually come out really effectively, and I do like it. 

For those who are curious, my first effort is at the bottom of this post, after the interesting bit about what you can win if you enter the challenge!!!

Please ensure your card includes a stamped image to qualify for a winner or Top 5 slot, whether you add the twist or not is up to you. 

PLEASE BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE RULES BEFORE ADDING YOUR CREATION AND CHECK IT MEETS THE CRITERIA AS LAID OUT ABOVE - ANY ENTRY NOT COMPLYING WILL UNFORTUNATELY BE DELETED

We are sponsored by  

DI'S DIGI DOWNLOADS

with a $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!

And also by

HOBBY ART

with this fabulous prize:-

Anna's Collection Oriental and a Colorbox Chalk Queue.

 As a family business we're a friendly, helpful, bunch at Hobby Art.  All our stamps are designed by us and manufactured in Britain. Look at the gallery on my blog -jennymayes.com - for lots of card ideas using the Hobby Art range.  We're pleased to sponsor the Crafty Cardmakers Challenge and look forward to seeing the entries.  
Good luck everyone.  Jenny and all. X#

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My pink and black effort...