My first challenge this year!

I was inspired to enter a blog challenge after seeing a sketch on a blog that I subscribe to with email updates. The sketch was for Papertake Weekly Challenge and was this:

I loved the sketch as it was simple with nice clean lines so I set to work and came up with this:

The image I used is a beautiful rubber stamp from Lili Of The Valley and I coloured her with Polycolour pencils. The background papers were in a download kit from Nitwit Collections and the sentiment and "Word Window" punch are from Stampin' Up! The punched border was made with a Martha Stewart border punch called Eyelet Lace.

I really enjoyed the challenge and being in time to enter it too!

Thanks for dropping by, Claire.

I do have an excuse...!

I am so sorry (again) that it has been far too long since I updated my blog. I have really missed my craft things in the last few weeks and I have several new Magnolia stamps to play with too! I shall share my excuse with you in a minute, but first I have one more card to share from April.

I made this card for my Mum and Dads Anniversary. It was a bit rushed so I kept it quite simple. The stamped image is a Penny Black rubber stamp called Good Cheer that I bought from The Glitter Pot. I coloured the image with Lyra Pencils and blended the pencil with Zest-it. The lilac and blue cardstock mats are Core'dinations card, the hearts edge was made by a Martha Stewart border punch called Valentine Lace, and the purple dots in the corners are Craftwork Cards Card Candy. The patterned paper is unknown I'm afraid as it came with a scrapbook kit. Finally, the sentiment stamp is also a Penny Black one.

Now, here is my reason for being so busy lately...

Meet Harry, our 11 week old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Puppy! He is wonderful but it's like having a toddler, we have to watch what he's up to all of the time! This photo is him eating grass in the garden, usually he tries to eat stones in the garden or dirt. I am from a family of cat lovers so owning a dog is a new experience for me. We looked into different breeds of dogs that could be a companion for our children and were amazed once we found out about Cavaliers, they are so friendly and were bred to be companion dogs so they are perfect!

Boys Football Card

Finally for the cards I made in March is one for my nephew who loves football:

I used a 6x6" square card and used an Elzybells rubber stamp for the footballer, which I coloured in with Copics. I matted the image onto red and black pearlised paper which I embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I used a Martha Stewart rings border punch to cut a decorative strip for the middle of the card, which I wrapped striped ribbon around. I used a football sheet of 12x12" paper (cut to size!) for the background but this is quite old so I don't know who made it! I then finished the card with an "8" candle cut with a Quickutz Die, corners cut with an EK Success punch and a Craftwork Cards "Oh my Words" Sentiment.

What a week!

Again it feels like I've neglected my blog but I just haven't had the time to craft! We had a hectic week as we had a Tribunal this week against the education department to get a place for our son at a special school in another county. It went really well and we won!

I couldn't even get near my workspace as it was too untidy but last night I spent a few hours re-organising my craft cupboard so everything would fit in and be easy to grab too. So now I should be able to squeeze in a bit more craft time in between sorting out the house and changing furniture!

Anyway, to give me a head-start, here is a card that I made last week:

The card is a 5x5" size and had to be made as once I mounted this cute stamp, I had to stamp it and colour in the image! The image is C.C. Designs Swiss Pixie called "Miss Rosalie with Roses" from Quixotic Paperie. I coloured it in with Promarkers which is a change for me and added some stickles glitter glue to the roses which doesn't really show here. I used a Martha Stewart edger punch called Hydrangeas to edge the card and brushed a little Distress Ink on the sides. The sentiment stamped on the tag is from Whimsy Stamps, also from Quixotic Paperie.

Valentines!

I made this card yesterday but added a touch more colour to the image today as it looked a bit lost on such a bright card! It is a Valentines card, but the "Happy Valentines Day" sentiment is on the inside as I had to use the sentiment on the front that worked well with the image.

The Stamps are all Penny Black. The main image is from a new Penny Black clear set called "Piece of My Heart" from The Glitter Pot and is coloured in with Lyra Polycolour Pencils. I used a 6x6" card and used a mat of black smooth cardstock with some Karen Foster "My Heart" 12x12" paper from Whoops a Daisy. I then used some more Bazzill 12x12" smooth card in red and black which was just 35p, again from my local craft shop called Whoops a daisy.

The mat for the image was cut with a circle Nellies Multi-Frame Die and the heart borders were cut with a Martha Stewart Valentine Lace Border Punch. I added Prima e.line pearls in red and black and a heart pin from my blog friend Jane (thank you Jane!) that is threaded through hearts which are cut with a Martha Stewart Scalloped Heart Punch.

This card hopefully qualifies for two blog challenges this week (I am on a roll for me!!)... First of all, the challenge this week on Penny Black Saturday Challenge is to use "Pins and Pearls". Secondly, on the Lily of the Valley Challenge Blog, the theme is Valentines, unfortunately I didn't own a LOTV stamp that was suitable for my husbands Valentines card, but luckily it's not essential.

Whiff of Joy Baby Love

Here is the card I made yesterday. This week on the Whiff of Joy Challenge Blog the theme is "Love" and I thought this stamp shows so much motherly love (the most important kind!), hopefully it will still count so I can enter.

The image is from a Whiff of Joy Stamp called Willow Holding Baby. I think the image is so pretty and elegant. I coloured the image in with Copics and mounted it onto a pink mat from a Making Memories 6x6" pad that co-ordinates with the background. I cut a lattice border with a Martha Stewart String Lattice Edger Punch and added some Making Memories ribbon. Finally I added some Prima Flowers called Painterly Petals and some Prima e.line pearls.

A bit of a late post...

I'm sorry I am being a bit of a bad blogger, I've been pretty exhausted so haven't had much time for crafting or blogging. This card I made a few weeks ago but had forgotten to put it on my blog!

The stamp is from Magnolia and is called "Tilda with Lilacs" and was coloured it in with Lyra pencils. The backing paper was from Pink Petticoat called washed damask. The punch used at the side is from Martha Stewart and called Doily Lace. I then used some small Pearls bought from Quixotic Paperie on the main image and in the centre of the punched flowers. The sentiment is a Craftwork Cards "Oh My Words" Birthday Circle.

Using up images..

I have lots of stamped images that have been coloured in and are just waiting to be made into a card. Most are in a box but some are still on my desk. Last week I had a can of diet coke on my desk and a box fell off the shelves above it and diet coke spilled over some of my things! I was devastated but luckily not too much got ruined. I was worried about some CC Designs images I'd recently coloured, but luckily only the white card got wet so I was able to save them by cutting out the image. So, three days ago I thought I should just start using some of the images that I have laying around and made these two:

This one is very simple, when I put the image onto the card, I felt that I should leave it rather than clutter it with anything extra as it would hide the cupcakes! The image is Whiff of Joy and the background paper is Doodlebug.

This one is a CC Designs fairy called Gretal. She is coloured with Copics and put onto Nestabilities circles. I used the Doily Lace Martha Stewart punch for the strip behind the circles and then my new Quickutz Photo Corner die for the corners. The flowers are Prima (of course!).

Janes Birthday!

It was Janes birthday last week. Jane (along with Petra) runs the Addicted to ATC's swap and has a wonderful blog called Milliesmarvels. Both links should be on my blog somewhere, but I'm not quite expert enough with my blog to put the link in here!

This is the card I made for Jane:

The stamped image is Magnolia "Tilda with Bicycle". I coloured it with Lyra Polycolour Pencils and blended with Sansodor low odour spirit. The image and mat underneath were cut with Nestabilities "Labels Eight" dies. I used the Doily Lace Martha Stewart Punch to break up the background paper and Prima Flowers at the bottom. The pearls are from the new Prima E-line range and are really good, but you do only get two of each size in each colour!

Another Whiff Of Joy Card!

When I used my new Whiff Of Joy stamp two days ago, I coloured in two images (because I loved it), they are very similar but have different colour aprons.

After I made the lilac card yesterday, I started to make this one then finished it off this afternoon.

I used an A5 white card and cut the edge with a Martha Stewart punch. I then put the green paper on the front with a tiny strip of it inside the card so it would show up the punched detail. The Whiff Of Joy image was coloured with Lyra Polycolour pencils and mounted onto pink Creative Memories card which I used a corner punch on to create the photo slits. I used a ribbon tag cut with a Spellbinders die and stamped on the sentiment using the Elzybells Family Messages set and added the Prima flowers to cover up the end of the ribbon as I couldn't work out where to end it!!

Big card...

A couple of weeks ago, I made this card, but hadn't quite finished it off with a sentiment, so I finished it off today. I'm not 100% happy with this card as I now think the paper may look a bit strange how it is, and I don't really like how I finished the sentiment. I think I was a bit guilty of finishing this quickly.

The image is Whiff Of Joy, coloured in with Lyra Polycolour Pencils. The card is Co'redinations, which has been cut with a Martha Stewart Edger Punch. The flowers are Prima with a Craftwork Cards "Card Candy" dot in the middle.

Birthday card for a 3 year old...

Tomorrow is my nieces 3rd birthday so yesterday I made her card. I decided to use the Penny Black fairy to make it girly. Of course, it had to be pink and glittery too and I had fun putting on the glitter. I then decided to use a Martha Stewart punch (I am so impressed with how well they work on card!) called Valentine Lace and I put Cassies name on the card too, rather than a sentiment. The alphabet was a Quickutz 4x8" die called Storybook and I like it, although I have found the "C" looks a bit like a "G" so it looks like the card says "Gassie"!!!

I coloured the image with some Lyra Rembrandt Polycolour Pencils. I saw them being demonstrated at Stamperama in Stevenage so I bought a few loose ones to try. They are lovely to work with as they are alot finer than Coloursoft pencils so my husband bought the set for my birthday.

I have just realised that I forgot to put any extras on the card (like adhesive stones). I think I was in such a hurry to finish last night as it was really hot in my small room. I will go and add those finishing touches now!!

My Mums Birthday

August is the month of most of the family birthdays including mine! This card I made for my Mums birthday that was last week.

I chose my new Elzybells Picking Strawberrys stamp as it's elegant and pretty and I teamed it up with a Magnolia strawberry paper. I also had to use one of my new Martha Stewart punches and chose one called "Doily Lace" which I used down the side. Because it didn't show much on the white card, I used a piece of red(ish) cardstock behind it.

The inside:

I really enjoyed using the little Elzybells Strawberry too, it's so versatile and great for backgrounds too!