My December Postcard

The theme for the December postcard swap over on UK Stampers is 'The top of the tree'

I chose a star for the top of my tree & wanted it to be the 'star' of my postcard.

I started with a base of blue card & used blue stazon ink to stamp the background - Santa, presents & Christmas writing

I then stamped my star stamp & Happy Christmas & heat embossed them using gold embossing powder to make them 'pop' & become the focus of the postcard.

I kept the subtleness & stamped the wording underneath the star again using blue stazon ink in a triangle to represent the top of the tree.

I tried various attempts at this using more colour & bling but much preferred this version.

It was very difficult to photograph though, so hope that the recipient finds it better in real life :-)

Graduation ...................

Our daughter graduated from the University of Cumbria last week, hence the green & silver colour theme for the card, with a First Class Honours Degree in midwifery - we are very proud of her.

 I used the university colours for the matting layers

and the punched circle sentiment that is hand written

This is a background stamp

and to finish I hand cut the mortar board in two pieces which I stuck together & finished with a piece of twine 

The list goes on .....

Hubby has written off my car - or rather the STUPID bus driver that ran a red light into the passenger side of my car wrote off my car!!  Hubby is fine *Phew* but days are now spent talking to/negotiating with the Insurance co & answering endless questions ............. same questions multiple times ............

It seems it never rains but it pours!!

But the good news is that I won the gorgeous Indigo Blue stamp set Poppy Meadow on the Craft Room Treasure Hunt 2!

Thanks so much.

It has arrived safely & is gorgeous in real life - can't wait to get it out & have a play - when I get near my craft room again :-)

Craft Room's Christmas present is now up for grabs

Treasure Hunt 3

http://craft-roomchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/11/craft-rooms-christmas-present-to-you.html

pop over & join in for the chance to win another gorgeous Indigo Blue stamp Wild Meadow

These stamps are so lovely that I'm running over to try my luck again :-)

Recovering.................

After a dreadful few weeks which started with my MIL being rushed into hospital with heart problems, followed by losing my precious kitty to a tumour & the next day having surgery myself, the electrics failing in our house .....

the list just seems to go on!

Well I'm finally recovering & managed to do my first crafting for a while ........

This is my postcard for the November postcard swap over on UK Stampers

The theme is fireworks

I used my 'blob' stamp which reminded me of the burst of a firework & used Perfect Medium & glitter embossing powders to achieve the firework burst effect.

I used blue distress inks for the background 'sky'

and a small alphabet set for remember & the November & 5 from a stamp set to do the wording.

I love to join in with the postcard swap - it's lovely to get something nice in the post each month :-)

Challenge Notebook

To get myself more organised I've made myself a little Craft Challenge Notebook to note down challenge requirements & the date they need to be done by.

I covered the notebook & used the toning back of the 12x12 paper for the title block

I stamped the sentiment

I then cut out the flowers & positioned them in the corner

and in the lower corner popped them on the end of the stamped stems.

Finished with some faux stitching round the edge using my white gel pen after handwriting the title.

Have you seen................

the Mega Candy over on the Charmed Cards & Crafts blog?

See my side bar! :-)

This is a Charmed Mikey download that I coloured with my copics. Just love him lounging against the car :-)

Halloween postcard

This is my postcard for the postcard swap over on UK Stampers

Can you guess this months theme?

Yes it's Halloween :-)

Firstly I used my distress ink pads to lay down the blue & orange & where they overlap they give a spooky greeny colour.

I stamped the images & then used distress crackle glaze  to highlight & give the spooky feel

I distress crackle glazed the body of the spider & attached it to the spider web stamped in the corner using a drawing pen.

Finally I stamped the date

A Huge Thank You

to my wonderful blogging friends for not giving up on me with no blog posts for so long. 

Unfortunately life got in the way in the form of dodgy health problems, the building work we are doing atm is causing chaos, the good news is that we actually have the heating back up & running finally!!, the house is such a mess everywhere & I couldn't get near my craft room (it's not much better now but I've beaten a path to my work desk after the withdrawl symptoms kicked in majorly!!) family members health problems, my poor puss cat is really poorly ............................ the list goes on & on 

but we did get a weeks holiday in Cornwall at the time of the beautiful weather :-)

Followers of my blog will know that I usually take some crafting bits & craft & blog whilst on holiday but this year it just didn't work out ......

So a Huge Thank You to you all for hanging in there

Take 3 Challenges

We have chosen a Recipe this time

Take 3 Challenges

We want you to choose 3 from any of our previous 29 and combine them in your design.
There is a list of our previous challenges under the tab heading at the top of our blog and you can also see the previous sketches under a separate tab.

Please state which 3 you have chosen.
NB There is no need to adhere to the One Layer if that is on the week you choose.

You may wish to go for your favourites or maybe your least...acetate springs to mind!

Most of all, be creative, have fun, remember our white space and the all important

"Less is More"

This is my card for this weeks Take 3 Challenges at Less is More

The 3 challenges are 

A touch of red, In the frame & use ink

The frame is the background framing the letters 

& I've used red ink.

The heart is chipboard that I've inked & embossed.

This week is a quick card as I didn't want to miss out in entering but I've been rather busy as my daughter got stuck in the USA due to Hurricane Irene & I've had to collected her (after being bumped off about 10 flights that she was booked on!!) & take her home to Cumbria & spend a couple of days with her .................. with limited internet time.

Hopefully I'll be back home & blogging soon.

A peek ..........

of what I'm doing tomorrow ....

I'm doing a Craft Fair for my charity NACC

my first!

I didn't get much notice. Luckily it's a fun day & not a dedicated Craft Fair so there will be lots of fun things going on bouncy castle/face painting/shoulder massage/live music/tombola/throw the wet sponge at the Consultant/cakes/nails etc as well as craft & vintage stalls including mine.

I'm hoping that the actual table is bigger than the chest in my hall that I used for a practice set out!

I'm not allowed to do cards as one of the committee does cards on a regular basis & is having a stall so I've had to be inventive!

Hope the selection goes down well

will let you know after the event

Things that move

This is my card for the LIM challenge this week.

Things that Move

This could be interpreted in a variety of ways...an actual moving component on your card, so a pop up, a shaker, a spinner, a charm, a tag... we could go on... 

On the other hand your card could have an image of something capable of movement, so the scope for that is almost infinitesimal!

I chose to make a waterfall card which is a moving component

 & put on it flowers (move in the wind), a butterfly, 

a cloud (moves across the sky) & a bird.

I finished with a swirl stamped straight onto the card, topped with a punched butterfly in the same 12x12 double sided paper I used for the waterfall.

I'm really pleased with the way this turned out :-)

LIM use Ink

Once more we are back to the second week of the month and so our challenge is for a 

ONE LAYER CARD

The special feature we would like to see this week is for you to 

USE INK
** This does include ink pads **

...hopefully in a way you haven't tried before.... or using a favourite technique.

I revisited a technique that I haven't used in forever after seeing the subject of the LIM challenge for this week.

I got out my brayer & a set of inks that I have hardly used & experimented with the different colourways & positioning on the page.

The inks are lovely & vibrant but unfortunately the camera hasn't picked it up very well.

For this card I placed the strip to the right & stamped using blue Stazon ink adding the sentiment straight onto the card as it's a one layer challenge.

I stamped the images slightly over the inked area for added contrast.

In this card the image is contained within the inked strip.

This reminds me of those 1970's posters :-)

and stamped the sentiment straight onto the card underneath the image.

a different colourway .....

again with the image stamped slightly over the edge.

The last placement was a rectangle in the middle of the card

and stamped the sentiment onto it

I used the same inks to colour the image of the castle using cotton buds as 'brushes' using in the main the same colours as the background.

Throughout I used post it notes to mask off the areas that I needed to protect from the ink.

I've had fun playing this week :-)

Christmas in Black & White +1

CHNC this week is to make a Xmas card using black, white & one other colour.

I chose red as my other colour.

I stamped this Penny Black image in black ink onto white card

& coloured the hats using a copic pen

these cute hedgehogs always make me smile! :-)

I  mounted the image onto the backing at a slight angle to give it a sense of movement.

I'd also like to enter this in Simon Says - Christmas in August 

and Penny Black Saturday Challenge - Anything Goes

Flag inspiration

The Less is More challenge this week is ....

This week it's time for another colour challenge and for your delectation this week, we have decided to ask you make a card  using the 

COLOURS 

of 

YOUR NATION'S FLAG!

We should be able to see quite a variety of colours this week as we are fortunate enough to have crafters from all around the world sharing in our challenges. If you could describe the colours of your flag or include an image of it, that would be great.

This is my card based on the Union Jack

For the background I used a piece of red card & a piece of spotted Bazil both of which i put though my nifty tool to make them corrugated to give a bit of texture. 

I then mounted them both onto a piece of blue card.

I then stamped the image onto the blue card using white ink & cut off part of the image & inked the edges to give a bit of definition.

Here you can see the blue base coming through the white ink.

To finish I stamped the sentiment straight onto the card.

So there you have it my Union Jack inspired red white & blue card.