Spring Birthday Card

Another order from work - a birthday card for a friend's mam - the request was for something classical with Spring flowers on it...


I kept it simple - the flower image (gawd knows what it is - I don't do flowers) is a pre die cut decoupage from my local craft shop in Sunderland - I don't know who makes them but I love using them for last minute cards. The paper is from a scrapbook set I got from a pound shop and the 'frill' is made using a new X Cut border die I treated myself to earlier this week.

I've entered this card into the following challenges...

The Pixie Cottage - 'Spring'

Crafty Creations - 'feminine Birthday in blues and greens'

Creative Inspirations - 'In the garden'

One Stop Craft Challenge - 'Spring Flowers'

Happy Crafting

Sharon
x

Football for Girls..

A strange request today... a birthday card commissioned for a friend's sister with a Newcastle United football theme.

I checked the NUFC website to see if there were any images I could use (steal!) but to no avail. Nor could I find any images of girls in footy strips ( well I did find some but they weren't wearing anything else with the footabll shirt if you see what I mean! )

So I used the club crest as the main image and added 'girly' touches with the ribbon, the black diamantes and the scallopped nestie.


A strange card but it ticks all of the boxes... obviously as a life long Sunderland fan I washed my hands thoroughly afterwards!!!

Bizarrely enough this satisfies the requirements for the following challenge...

Charisma Cardz - Black and White with one other colour

Happy crafting!
Sharon x

First Birthdays...

Two first birthday cards today - both are bright and cheerful. When I looked around the card shops for some inspiration, a lot of the cards were in pastel colours just like new baby cards and personally I thought they were a bit insipid. At one, children are attracted to bright colours and shapes so I've tried to make these stand out.


The first one is made with some pink and purple spotty paper I downloaded from the internet - I think it's from Crafts Beautiful website. The number shape was created in Wordart then printed on to the back of the patterned paper to make it easy to cut out. I finished it off with a ribbon and a flower in coordinating colours.


The second one uses the same method for the number but I've added some balloon peel-offs pieced with the colours of the striped paper, which is from the sweet shop collection by American crafts.

Clean and Simple

Back in my comfort zone today - I discovered some new challenge blogs last night that I hadn't seen before so I had to have a go...


I found this cute digi stamp while I was blog hopping, my new favourite pastime! There's so much talent out there to inspire you as well as a ton of freebies. This cow image is from Janna's Papiersalat blog which is written in English and German but it's easy to find her gorgeous free digi images. The pink daisy paper has been in my stash for years - I got it from Hobbycraft when I first started making cards. I finished off with some googly eyes from the Early Learning Centre and a large X-cut punched daisy.

I've entered this card into the following Challenges:

Clean and Simple - Sketch

Totally Papercrafts - Clean and Simple

A Touch of Magic

There's some lovely free papers with this month's issue of Creative Cardmaking - gorgeous mythical figures in pastel watercoloured shades of green, purple and blue. Not usually my thing but they were so pretty I was inspired to have a go at a style of card that is way out of my comfort zone - look there's no white space!


The image and the greeting are from the magazine. I've layered and embossed some lilac card to go behind the image and finished off with a handmade bow and some punched flowers and leaves. I'm so pleased with those flowers and leaves - I have loads of punches but never use them so they might get a bit more action after this.

I've entered this card into the following challenge:

Charisma Cardz - Mythical/Fantasy

Back to reality now - off to do the shopping!

Another Engagement

It must be 'cos St Valentine's Day is just round the corner but love is definately in the air! Another request for an Engagement card, this time for the daughter of my manager at work.


I wanted to make something delicate and pretty rather than cute and I hope I've managed to do this. The heart shape was lightly hand drawn on the front of the card and then covered in tiny punched flowers. I used tiny circles of lilac vellum for the middle of the flowers then carefully stuck them on with tweezers. My cards aren't complete without ribbon somewhere so I used a lilac white ribbon to finish down the side. The result - a very clean and simple card.

I've entered this card in two challenges:

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Have a Heart

Craft Cardmakers - Hearts

Amy's Birthday

My friend, Katherine, has a little girl who has just turned nine and she wanted a card with her name on that she could frame for her bedroom. I though pink was definitely the colour to use...




I was going to use a plain pink background but it looked too pink if that's possible. I finally settled on the white daisies on a pink background. I coloured the centre of the daisies with a pale green promarker to match the butterflies which are from Papermania.

My First Blog Award......

Wow! I've been sent a blog award by the wonderful Charlee - I'm amazed that anyone even reads my mumblings, never mind sending me blog awards. Thank you so much - I feel honoured to accept it.


This special award, is aimed at bringing unknown good blogs to light, and in accepting the award I have had to agree to the following conditions:

1) You have been tagged, do you want to accept? YES! then create a post on your blog and post the love blog photo.

2) Link back to the person who gave you the award and say if you accept.

3) Choose 3-5 of your favourite blogs to tag, link these in your post too and tell the lucky people they have been tagged.

As the aim of this award is to bring unknown good blogs to light, please don't tag somebody with 3000 followers.

So the bloggers I am awarding it to are:

CARRIE - makes great cards and does very funky stuff with bling and clothing!

SYLVIE - is a very talented lady who does the most wonderful digi images which you can get from her blog

SANDRA - who was my first blogging friend and makes lovely brightly coloured creations.

Hqappy crafting

Sharon
x

Cutesy Engagement Card

Today's offering features extremely cute Forever Friends decoupage - the lazy sort that is already die cut and just needs layering! Sometimes you only have time for the easy option. The backing paper is part of a baby girl scrapbooking kit and is actually just one sheet of paper so I didn't have a lot to do at all. I've finished it off with some pale pink and brown punched flowers - a cute card for very little effort.

Spotty Frocks

Two birthdays this weekend - my sister-in-law and her best friend. So I decided to make them matching cards and what better than glamourous spotty frocks. I found this fabulous freebie digi stamp on a marvelous blog called The Creative Mind of Sylvie - she is a very talented lady has has some wonderful freebie digi images, everything from golf bags to glamourous Goths! Have a look there - I've now added her to my fave sites.

I've paper-pieced the frock with spotty papers I got free with a magazine, added some rich brown ribbon and a brown coloured diamante (I always wondered how I would use them!).

Teenage Birthday

I've never been keen on making cards for men and teenage boys are even worse! For this card for a work colleague I used the easy option - numbers. The papers are very old - the Papermania For Him range that was out a few years ago. The numbers are from templates made in Wordart then traced onto patterned paper and mounted onto navy plain paper for definition.





I've entered this card into the following challenge:

Allsorts Challenge Blog - Colour Challenge - use Teal Blue and Brown

Anniversary Couple

I found some lovely vintage images some time ago on a great site called Create With TLC and I've been dying to use them. This image of the dancing couple has a lovely 50's glamour feel to it.


The image has been coloured as usual with promarkers (pastel green) and a tiny turquoise gem added as her earring. The polka dot paper is wrapping paper and I've continued the turquoise color scheme by adding some pale turquoise gossamer ribbon.

Trusty Card Layouts

Do you have a layout for your cards that you always use when your imagination has gone AWOL?? This card below shows mine...



The image is a digi freebie I got with Complete Cradmaking some time ago - I love it cos it's so easy to colour and decoupage.

One of my New Year Resolutions is to start using up some of the piles and piles of stash that I have hoarded over the years. This paper is from a Papermania pack called Olive Essence that I have always found difficult to use - I wish packs of patterned paper came with some block colour sheets aswell so that everything matches.

I've entered this card in the following challenges...

Kaboodle Doodles - Anything Goes

Craft Your Passion Challenges - Anything Goes

Back to normal...

It's that strange time between Christmas and New Year when you can never remember what day it is and all you do is eat and watch TV! I've had a lovely trip to Hobbycraft this week where I invested in some label nesties, a couple of embossing folders for the Cuttlebug and some bits for next year's Christmas cards! I will start earlier next year.




Here's a very simple card I've made today to add to my collection. The very cute house image is from the Digi Boutique and I've coloured it with promarkers - took all of about half an hour to make.

I've entered it in the following challenges:

Let's Craft and Create New Beginnings

I Love Promarkers Anything Goes

ABC Challenge Keep It Simple


Finally, to everyone who bothers to read my little area of blogland.... hope you have a Happy New Year and best wishes for 2011

Sharon

xx

Scottish Piper

Now this is the sort of request that gets me excited! I was asked for 'something with a Scottish Piper on it for my dad's 80th birthday!" My main worry was where on earth I would find such an image but once again the internet was my friend. I googled images of pipers and found this fab image which is actually a colouring sheet for a child.



I used my trusty promarkers (Forest Green, Cornflower and Cool Grey3 ) for the colouring and I paper pieced the kilt and shawl with rather fetching tartan paper - this is the first time I have tried this technique and I am dead pleased with the result. I decoupaged the bagpipes which nicely covered up the raw edges of the tartan paper.

I've decided to enter this card into the following challenges...

Digital Tuesday Let's Celebrate (must include digi image)

Papertake Weekly Challenge Anything Goes

Passion For Promarkers Anything Goes (using promarkers)

Birthday Shoe

I found this wonderful image of a wedding shoe while flicking through blogs - I believe it's by Jim Harker, the man who draws the La Pashe series - I'm sorry but I can't remember exactly where I found it - it may have been via Jak Heath's wonderful blog - she always has loads of gorgeous freebies. If you ever have the time to trawl the interwebby you can find loads of lovely free images like this - though do be a bit more organised than me and make a note of where you get them!

It's not the best photo - I took it with the card on the window sill at work - but it's coloured with promarkers and the matting is embossed with swirls. I couldn't resist finishing it with lilac diamantes and ribbon - I'm starting to use these in every card I make!

Last of The Christmas Cards

That's it for another year...next year I really will try to start earlier as it has been quite stressful getting all the cards finished! Before we know it it will be Mother's Day!

Everything on this first card has been recycled - the lovely purple card started life as file dividers which were going to be thrown away at work. The ribbons were cut from clothing and the big silver snowflake was pulled from one of last year's cards.

I cut the baubles using two small nestie circles and embossed two of then with dots and swirls - to highlight the embossing I've coloured them with silver paint - very effective. I love the challenge of making cards like this from nothing.



This second card was actually a nightmare to make - it took ages to thread the ribbon through the holes in the Nellies die. The image is once again Ice Pop - the cutest snowman on the block. It's hard to see on the pic but the background is embossed withthe swiss dot embossing folder.



I love this final card - it's so touchy feely. The tree is made from a long triangle of card with grooves cut up each side then wound with fluffy wool. The baubles are big pink diamantes and it's finished off with a silver star and a ribbed silver pot. Very girly.

I'm now looking forward to making normal cards again!

2 Weeks To Go!

I'm frantically trying to get my Christmas cards finish - I'm getting sick of the sight of trees and snowman etc!



I love this quirky snowman image from the Digi Stamp Boutique. He's called Ice Pop and I've tried to make him frostier by using shades of ice blue. I've entered it in the following challenges:

Paper Cutz Challenge - digitally stamped snowman

A few more Christmas cards...

Back to the Christmas cards again - next year I am definately going to start making them in August!!


This card was very easy - all I used was a holly punch and some red diamantes. I made a circular base using two different size nesties then just stuck the punched holly shapes on top. The diamantes were used for the berries and a red bow finishes it off. I'm pleased with this - it has a very traditional feel to it.



I like the feel of wintery iciness in this card. The spotty paper is acually tiny baubles - it came free with a magazine a couple of years ago. The image is an Alex and felicity digi from DigiStamp Boutique, my current fave place for digis.

A Break From Christmas Cards......

I had a welcome break from Christmas cards this week when a work colleague asked for a 60th birthday card for her mam.


She asked for something with flowers so I used an old favourite - a lovely floral image I got with a Complete Cardmaking ages ago. The image was coloured with promarkers and decoupaged. I matched the image with a couple of patterned papers from the Dovecraft Happy Holidays pack, a contemporary red and green geometric pattern and a subtle two tone green pattern. It's finished off with some red diamante gems and a red ribbon. another happy customer!

It is also suitable for the following challenges...

Paper Cutz Challenge - Two patterned papers