I had a lovely glow when I first read this morning's challenge over at Less Is More. STRIPES! I love stripes - I am always buying stripey papers in all colours. Then I had a cuppa and woke up properly and read the challenge again - ONE LAYER. Oh no! I don't do stamping at all and I certainly don't do all that messy inking business so seeing the cards already made by the early birds I was in a bit of a dilema.
Then I found this gorgeous image I have had some time called Cefer and Domino by Little Musings. What better than stripey cats! After a bit of positioning trouble I finally printed this and coloured it using promarkers. Purr-fect - my second one layer card.
I scoured the colouring pages websites for an image suitable for a 10 year old girl and came up with this. The Bratz characters are quite funky and a major plus for me is that they have full faces - images such as Magnolia's Tilda and Edwin creep me out!
I've coloured her using Promarkers in shades of lilac and pale lime and used patterned papers from Dovecraft's basics range. The flowers are digi images carefully cut and coloured. Looking at this card for too long makes your eyes go funny!
I've entered this into the following challenges...
Sew Many Cards - Birthday Card Challenge
If The Shoe Fits... - Anything Goes
Just a quick post today - a big number birthday card for a little girl who is about to be 2. The paper is one I printed from a crafting CD when my printer needed more ink and the colours didn't come out as they should have but it's still usable.
The lettering is done with die-cuts and I've finished off with a few random punched flowers.
I can't believe the Less is More challenge blog is a year old - how time flies! The challenge there this week is to use the colour 'aqua'. I wanted to make a card that totally sums up the Less Is More ethos and ended up with the following effort...
The flowers are made from a simple digi image as seen before in the Kitty and Peppa cards. I've carefully cut around them and coloured with a pale aqua promarker. I've scored lines above and below the flowers to add a bit of texture (difficult to see) and finished off with a printed greeting.
Voila! Happy Birthday to the lovely ladies from LIM and may your blog continue and prosper xx
Following on from Hello Kitty, here's another quirky card for a little girl - this time a Peppa Pig fan! I acquired this image from another colouring pages web site - try googling "Peppa Pig colouring pages" and you'll see how simple it is! The papers are from the same pack as the Kitty card and I've finished with another digi stamp flower.
I've entered this into the following challenges:
The Pixie Dust Studio Pixie Challenge - Let's Go To The Zoo
Sweet Stampin' - Use an animal
Today's card is for a little girl who loves all things Hello Kitty. I found the image on a children's colouring pages site which is always my first port of call when anyone requests a 'character' card. I just download the images to my computer then I can resize and alter them as required.
They have everything from Barbie to The Simpsons - a treasure trove of free digi images! I've coloured Kitty with promarkers and used Dovecraft Back To Basic papers.
I've entered this card into the following challenges:
A Gem of a Challenge - Sketch
Crazy 4 Challenges - A child's Birthday Card
Stamptacular Sunday - Seeing spots
Full of cold today! It's probably my own fault for going out last night without a coat but one must suffer for fashion! Freezing temperatures here in Sunderland - it's so frosty outside it looks more Christmassy than Christmas did!
Today's card continues the cold theme in shades of blue - a 30th birthday card using the delightful Lola Rose image from Pink Petticoat. I've paper pieced the frock with spotty Doodlebug paper and coloured the rest of the image with promarkers.
I've entered this card into the following challenges:
Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Anything Goes With Blue
Crazy 4 Challenges - Monochromatic in Shades of Blue
Crafts 4 Eternity - Blues
The theme at Less Is More today is a one layer card using birds. Oh dear - way out of my comfort zone! Not the birds but the one layer business - I can't stamp to save my life and I'm lost unless I'm adding embellishments!
I set to work going through all my digi images and found this gorgeous bird house by Little Musings . I thought it would take ages to line it up with the greeting - but it didn't. I've started to use Microsoft Publisher when I'm printing off digi images as there's a lot of control over sizing and placement. It's coloured with promarkers and that's it! My first one layer card!
Christmas seems so long ago! I've had a lovely break from all things crafty but I've finally had to make a start again as orders are building up!
I love making girly cards and the image on this card is one of my favourites. It's a freebie I found ages ago by Jim Harker at Just Inklined called Wedding Shoe and it is so easy to colour (using promarkers) and decoupage.
It's matted onto pale pink card and I've increased the 'pinkness' by adding a gossamer ribbon and some Card Candy coloured pink with promarkers.I've entered this card into the following challenges:
Do You Stack Up - Pink!
Art Impressions Stamps - Pink, pink and more pink!
I think this may well be the last Christmas card I post this year..... I now have my bah humbug head on and I am fed up with making anything to do with Christmas - roll on Mother's Day!
I love all things NitWits and couldn't wait to use some more of their gorgeous products on this year's cards. I used this cute pink snowman die cut from their Joyful Hearts range and kept the layout of the card simple to show off the image. All the shapes are cut with nesties and I've added a touch of bling with pale pink diamantes on the squares and snowflake.
Voila! End of the Christmas cards till at least next July!
I've entered this card into the following challenges:
CRAFT Challenge - Pastelles for Christmas
Papertake Weekly - Last Christmas card of the Year
Try It On Tuesday - Anything Goes
Lets Craft and Create - Anything Goes
Happy Christmas
Sharon xx
Amongst the odd requests I've had for cards this week is one for a 60 year old Elvis fan... it's not often that these requests stump me but it took a lot of searching the internet to come up with this idea. I found this wonderful Elvis sihouette on an embroidery transfer website, traced it onto black paper and used it as the main image on this card. I also used foam pads to give even more of a 3D effect. I'm so pleased with the result, you can tell who it is immediately!
This card fits in perfectly with the challenge this week over at Less Is More - the theme is 'music' and what better than one of the greatest artists of the 20th century!
Nearly finished the Christmas cards now - just another dozen to make! Following on from my previous card, I started playing around with more of my old peel-offs and came up with this...
I've added bling to the trees in the form of red and clear diqmantes and decorated the bottom of the front of the card with an X-Cut border die. The greeting tag has been added with co-ordinating red ribbon and is done on the computer in Copperplate Gothic font for those folk who like to know such things.
This was so quick and easy to make, I made additional ones in green and blue colourways! I've entered this card into the following challenges:
Crafty Cardmakers #58 - Use It Three Times
Cupcake Card Challenges - Don't Look At The Light (Sparkly, glittery cards)
When I found these peel-offs in a bargain bucket for 10p each I was determined to make something with them... here I am 2 years later and I still haven't used them - until today!
I'm enjoying the clean and simple look at the moment as I still have another 20 cards to make by next Friday! This card took about 20 min to make - mostly just cutting, trimming and sticking. It actually looks a lot classier in the flesh as I have used heavy linen card and the gold and silver is matt rather than shiney. 
I've entered this card into the following challenges...
Polka Doodles - Quick Christmas card
Moving Along With The Times - Last Minute Christmas
After a request to make a special Christmas card for a new baby boy, I scoured the internet for suitable ideas and found this delightful snow baby image by Jenni Hamilton at Card Mad Fairy's creations. There are some lovely images to be had there with prices starting from 50p - it's certainly a site to add to your favourites if you like digi stamps. There's some particularly lovely oriental images that would be fab for Chinese New Year cards.
The papers I've used are just basic pastel stripes and spots from my stash, the matting shape is from Nellie's and I've coloured him with promarkers. I don't know if you can tell from the photo but I've added white glitter to the 'fur' on his snow suit.
I've entered this card into the following challenges:
Delightful Challenges - Blue Christmas
The Pink Elephant - Snowflakes and sparkle
Season's Greetings!
Sharon
Today's card is one I've made many times before in various colours - the thing that makes them all slightly different is how I decorate the baubles which are cut from nesties. I really need to invest in some shaped bauble dies if I'm going to make this card next year as most people have received a version of this one!
One bauble is embossed with a Tim Holtz folder then highlighted in silver, the second has an Anita's Glitteration snowflake and a green diamante and the third has glittery star peel-offs. So easy! I've entered this card into the following challenges:
LESS IS MORE - use the colour green
CRAFTY HAZELNUT - mainly monochromatic
ALLSORTS CHALLENGES - going round in circles
CREATIVE CARD CREW - monochromatic
Happy Crafting!
Sharon
I get lots of requests to make cards for special age birthdays and my favourite way of doing this is by focussing on the number itself. I make the numbers using Word Art, reverse the image then print them onto the back of the paper. It's easy to carefully cut round the printed lines - I tend to use a pair of fine embroidery scissors for this task.
The backing paper is by Nancy Watt for making Cards Magazine and the stars are made using Sissix die-cuts. I've entered this card into the 'Milestone Birthdays' challenge at Crafty Emma's Store CES Challenge
The Saturday Challenge theme over at Secret Crafter this week is Flowers and Borders - two things that are perfect for a birthday card for a 60 year old lady.
The rose image and paper came from an old issue of Making Cards. I'm going through piles and piles of card magazines at the moment and trying to use up some of the gorgeous papers that come with them. The die-cut border is from X-cut and I've added a silky burgundy ribbon and some diamantes to bling it up. The layout is my 'lazy layout' that I use when I'm in a rush and can't think of any other!
A difficult category at the best of times - you even have to be careful with the embellishments you use so it doesn't look 'lame'!
I focused on the age and used a bold, masculine paper and greeting that came with a Making Cards magazine a couple of years ago. The numbers were created with WordArt in Microsoft Publisher and highlighted with faux stitching.
I enjoyed the challenge of designing a card around a sketch so searching through The Daily Dare blog I found another that looked quite easy to follow...
This one is the current challenge over at The Digi Doodle Shop. I have loads of Christmas cards to make for various people so using this as the template (and turning the drawing upside down) I came up with the following:
The patterned paper is old Dovecraft and the image is saved on my computer with the tag Dove Art Snowman... I am unable to find the artist to give full credit so many apologies there. It took no time to make so I think I'll spend the afternoon making a batch of these.
