Happy 40th Nich

Morning peeps and Happy Birthday to my wonderful daughter.
Sadly her 40th birthday bash is on hold and she's having to work today, teaching in a special school, but I'm sure her two fab sons and supportive OH will make it as fun a day as possible.

Anyway, I wanted to make her a card to cheer her up as well as saying Happy Birthday, so here is her card using her fave colours.

I couldn't use flowers for this as she's not a great fan but she loves a butterfly and sparkle! Therefore I used Uniko's English Country Garden stamps and matching dies to create this floating frame card.

All the details on the make can be found on my Brand Ambassador post over at Uniko.


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Just the photo

May you never outgrow bubbles

Good morning peeps.
Its Tuesday and I know that because its time for a new challenge at Cardz4Guyz. Must admit that days are blurring and the OH even asked me what day it was on Sunday! If it wasn't for my calendar of DT posts, I would be well and truly lost!
This time our theme is:-

SHAKER CARD

I did struggle at first with ideas for a masculine shaker but eventually I came up with this.

I used a MFT peekaboo die set to cut the apertures and cloud edge before adding the cheeky bubble chicks from Stamping Bella. The pic at Inkspirations also lead me down the yellow chick route!

The shaker elements were made by layering the while cloud panel with an acetate one and two fun foam ones. I did use just one layer of foam at first but it was a little too shallow for the bugle beads to move around. I used these beads as they reminded me of tiny bubbles and they have been in my stash since my daughter started dancing over thirty years ago! They are probably older than that because they were given to me by an aunt who used them for my cousins ballroom dresses! Also, they are a little less feminine than sequins. The background cloud DP is a scrap of NitWits from the bits box.

There are lots more masculine card ideas from the rest of the DT here, so why not join in?

The idea of using these cheeky chaps also came from Darnell's Twofer challenge where bubbles/ circles are the theme. So whilst the chicks were on my desk, I decided to turn them into penguins and make a Christmas card. I've made them into robins on baubles before here and here, but thought footy playing penguins would be fun too, so bubbles became soccer balls this time.

I'm not sure what the style of card is called but it allows the card to stand quite solidly without it being too complicated to construct. The idea of chicks being penguins was introduced by the fab Faye on one of her Copic colouring classes and I've not really explored this avenue before! The background was made by inking the folded base with a cloud stencil and Salty Ocean DI. The snow drifts were cut with a die and then covered with a glaze of clear Wink of Stella and then added. Sadly the shine doesn't show up in the pic! 

After colouring with Copics, the penguins and 'bubbles' were fussy cut and added to the card. The background looked a little too un Christmasy, so I added some tiny punched snowflakes and some freehand movement lines below a couple of the balls with a fine liner. The stamped sentiment is from Uniko.

Here are both of the cards together.

That's all from me for the moment, see you all later!

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Let's hear it for the boys

STAMPlorations challenge reminder

Welcome to a post to remind you that there is still time to enter the challenges over at STAMPlorations. Here is my card based on the current challenge at Theme and Photo.

The photo reminded me of a New Year's Eve Party and the ticker tape and balloons that sometime get let off at midnight!

For this card I used the two smallest elements from a couple of the confetti stamps in the Balloons and Banners set as well as the round balloon stamp.

To get the no line effect on the balloons, I stamped each colour before colouring with Copic markers and a lot of masking! The strings were drawn freehand with a black fine liner pen.

Some of the confetti was embossed with opaque EP, some with clear over inked stamping and some free hand with a Versamark pen as well as Zig marker and then quickly embossed before the ink dried! Hopefully the smaller marks give the design some depth.

The celebrate sentiment was die cut from both black and white card, mounting the white slightly to one side of the black to give a shadow effect.

That's about from me but please check out the rest of the teams here, where you'll also find all the links to the galleries and the Ts and Cs.

Shery has also just opened her new STAMPlorations digital and outlet store. Why not click and find out what's happening over there?

     


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Make it colourful


Embossing wet or dry

A card for the Christmas stash

Evening all.
Its time for a brand new challenge over at Perfectly CAS. Here's my card based on this month's theme.

I chose to go down the Christmas route as I have yet to really start on this years stash and thought this the perfect opportunity.
Here is a close up of the stamped panel which shows all the sparkly EP I used over the stamping

The main image is a Penny Black cling, I bought to use last Christmas and never used as I didn't really know how to incorporate the image.

Firstly I stamped the image a couple of times with Altenew's Dew Drops ink and then quickly added some holographic EP before it dried. The EP has a lovely sparkle but also allows the colour to show through. It also doesn't get everywhere like glitter does!

To frame the scene, I added a die cut frame and slipped a die cut deer in the bottom right hand corner.

Before adding the frame to the background, I stamped the greeting from Uniko in the next shade of turquoise ink, Aqualiscious. The frame was popped up with fun foam and then the trimmed down background added before attaching to my base card.

For more sparkly inspiration, check out the rest of the team here.

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Scene or not
I always like to add something to my background stamps to create a little scene.  It adds depth to the design even if it is CAS!

     

Girls just want to have a cocktail

Evening all.

I hope I find you well, especially in these strange times. Social distancing rules are being slowly eased here in the UK but we're still a long way to being back to pre Covid-19 normality. We should be celebrating our daughter's 40th in a couple of weeks but that is all on hold, parties are something that happened quite awhile ago. That is unless you can have one with the rest of your lockdown household!

My OH had the bright idea of dressing up at least once a week to have a virtual date, just like we were going out but staying put, if that makes sense. All I seem to wear these days are jeans and a T or a shirt if I go to the supermarket, so I suppose he has a point.

Anyway we can all enjoy the thought of going out or even a party but we can still party in the virtual world with the latest challenge at HLS CAS, here is my card for your inspiration. A OLC with just a little bit of paper piecing.

These two gals from Stamping Bella just shrieked party and the sentiment from Uniko was perfect.

After stamping and colouring with Copic markers, using the colours from Cupcake Inspiration, I decided the pink dress was too red so found a scrap of pink DP with cream dots and did a bit of shading with Copics and fussy cut it before adding over the original colouring. 

I think I like this more than the original anyway! As I've used spotty paper perhaps I can join in over at Less is More too.

However, if you want more party themed CAS ideas, check out the rest of the team here and then why not join us in our virtual party themed challenge.

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                                                     Oops, sorry forgot about the paper piecing!