Any man can be a Father

Good morning all.

June is well up on us now and that means that Father's Day will soon be here, so to help you with your makes the latest challenge starting today over at Cardz4Guyz is -

SOMETHING BLUE for FATHER'S DAY

We've never celebrated the day in our family. My Dad didn't hold with this 'new fangled American thing' and my hubby is of the same opinion so I don't make them really, but I do know that lots of people do, so here is my inspiration for you.

My starting point was the sentiment stamps I got from Card-io for this very occasion!

I used a fab card by Jen Nelson as inspiration, well CASed really. I've had it in my LOTV folder for a very long time, so long I couldn't find the old LOTV inspiration post but here is a link to a Pinterest pin. 

I stamped this James the Bear from LOTV in Paris Dusk Memento onto a white panel and coloured him with blue and neutral Copcs before stamping the two part sentiment, also in blue. The white base card was covered with some dark blue DP before the panel was glued down.

So for more BLUE inspiration check out the rest of the team here. Why not join in, you've got a whole two weeks to do so.

New Blossom Sprays

Welcome to a post to announce the start of a brand new Theme/Sketch challenge over at STAMPlorations. 

Here is my card for you using the fabulous brand new Blossom Sprays 2.

I love this new stamp, so feminine and pretty. I didn't want to do too much to this so kept it quite simple and let the stamp shine.
I used this month's theme of


but you could use the sketch

or combine the two!

On a panel of MM paper cut with the largest Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle Nesting Die, I stamped the spray and embossed with white EP, colouring it with a pastel colour combo using my Zig pens. When dry I cut the 'wonderful' with the CUTplorations word die and again in white fun foam. I made sure that all the tiny bits from the first cut were safe, removed the wonderful, then flipped the panel over and attached some doublesided tape over the die cut space then flipping back, before carefully adding back the foam die cut and tiny coloured bits into the space. The coloured wonderful was then glued in place over the top.
On a strip of navy card, I embossed the Happy Birthday from the Balloons and Banners set and a freebie Sister stamp from a magazine. I decided to trim the word panel down and separated the two parts, attaching it flat on the main panel. The finished panel was then glued flat over a white base card.
Don't forget to check out the rest of the team here and then join in, we'd love to see what you come up with. You can also use this discount code when you want to order any of the new stamps and dies or anything else you want from the shop.

I'd like to join in over at -

Inspired by words

'Flowers and Friends make Life a Garden'

No twist for me


My favourite things
Flower stamps, dies and Zig pens

Sparkle and Shimmer

Good afternoon folks.

It's Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK and of course it's been raining, so I have had a fabulous excuse to retreat to my craft room and play. Al is busy crafting some speaker boxes for our son who is creating his own cinema experience in his lounge, built in speakers for surround sound, drop down projector and screen, so after a little bit of fettling in the house I sat down this aft to play too.

Seeking inspiration I came across this week's challenge at Muse. Now I haven't played there for quite some time for one reason or another but as it's Ardyth's 50th birthday, Happy Birthday Ardyth, I thought I would join in.

She's asking us to CASE one of her cards as a twist to the normal Muse so I went for a look on her fabulous blog and then came up with this.

I used this card as my inspiration plus the latest challenges at Paper Players and Less is More.

I've noticed that Ardyth likes to use square card bases but I must admit to using the rectangular format so my frame is a nod to this, it also matches the sketch at Paper Players! I used the same Altenew Beautiful Days set and the silver, white, blue colours but used the shimmer effect I saw Jennifer McGuire use here. I've wanted to try this shimmer technique for awhile and as the challenge at LiM is Shimmer I thought why not.

So that's about it from me folks. Hope the weather improves as we are getting a visit from our Grandson soon.

I'd like to join in over at:-

CASing Ardyth

     

Love is like a butterfly

Good morning, hope I find you well.

Over at Cardz4Galz we have a brand new challenge for you. Our theme for you this time is to make a project -

INSPIRED BY A SONG

Here is my card.

I saw the challenges over at Paper Players and Stamping Sensations and the song - Love is like a butterfly wouldn't stop buzzing around my head!

It was used in one of my fave sitcoms of the late 70's early eighties as their theme tune, Butterflies staring Wendy Craig as well as the Dolly original.

I borrowed this SU butterfly from my bestie Di to make a card for my daughter who loves these colours and butterflies. 

To start, I stamped the butterfly at a jaunty angle on a white card panel, then embossed it in silver. I then placed a rectangular die cut over and traced around it with a pencil, then trimmed the parts that I wanted to extend over the die cut rectangle. This allowed me to work these parts over the top of the die so that when cut they would remain intact. Once done I washed in some DIs in Salty Ocean and Wilted Violet and stamped the greeting. The completed panel was popped up on pads.

Please check out the rest of the DT here and why not join in, we'd love to see what you come up with.

I'd like to join in over at -

    

                                                    Butterflies, fairies, fantasy

Joy to the world

Hi and welcome to a scheduled post to announce the start of a brand new challenge at ATSM.

Here's my inspiration card.

This is because the latest challenge is -

I know my daughter hates it when I post a Christmas card so early in the year but it does mean I'm not madly making them at the last minute in November and December! I think it is a particular good idea this year as I think I may be a little busy towards the end of this year, wink, wink.

To inspire me I had a root through some ideas I'd saved awhile back and saw a card using a monochrome snowflake bauble on grey here. Loved the tone on tone effect with the contrast sentiment.

I've had this freebie bauble die for quite awhile awaiting the perfect opportunity. This was it and I decided to go with a navy option with white and silver accents.

To start I cut a panel of navy card with a MFT blueprints die and then the bauble with snowflake pattern in the same blue card and black fun foam. I glued the two together to get the dimension then added some fine silver chord from the stash and the die cut JOY (a Tim Holtz alphabet strip from Sizzix). I added an extra silver die cut snowflake to finish. The sentiment is from Uniko and was stamped and embossed with white EP. The bauble was attached to the blue panel and a bow from the same chord finished it off. The blue panel was then popped up on a panel of fun foam over a white base.

For more holiday inspiration check out the rest of the team here.

Joining in over at:-

K - Keep it Simple

Precipitation

(snowflake on Joy and bauble)

No option this time

Urban Graffiti

Morning all.

Just popping by to let you know that there is a brand new challenge starting over at Cardz4Guyz.

We are running our challenges on a two weekly basis over the summer so hope you've been waiting for a new one to start. Our new theme is -

FAVOURITE COLOUR COMBO

Now I don't really have a go to combo for my masculine cards, I tend to take inspiration from around the challenge blog community, but when I saw that the latest colour challenge at JUGS was navy, turquoise and lime green I was away. I love this cool, crisp combo and together with the urban theme at Inkspirational, I came up with this card.

  

When I saw the theme at Ink, I immediately thought of graffiti and then skyscrapers, but I just kept with just the graffiti element for this. There are lots of graffiti style cards around on Pinterest such as here, I even made this one awhile back using the same stamp set from Woodware. This time I used my Tim Holtz Sizzix wall EF instead of the stencil to create the background.

After stamping and colouring with Copics, I doodled some of my own graffiti with a white gel pen and a black outliner, then added a sentiment and some splodges of ink and some arrows before wiping the front of my EF with Hickory Smoke DI and running it through the BigShot. Carefully removing the panel I trimmed the embossed panel and mounted it onto navy card before mounting on a plain white base card.

For more inspiration check out the rest of the DT here and why not share your favourite colour combo with us this fortnight.

I'd like to join in over at:-

   

A Warm Snuggly Quilt

Good morning all.
I'm here bright and breezy on a Saturday morning to share a card I made for Less is More.
I was honoured to be their April winner and the girls asked me to GD this week.
Here is my card.

Can you guess this week's theme? It is -

I was thinking of going down the hexagonal shaped card route at first but in the end went with this quilt design. I'm really a novice when it comes to quilting, I do enjoy making the designs up but I've kept the finished products to simple cushion covers. I have a half made bean bag cover in the cupboard that was supposed to be for my Grandson but I couldn't figure how to finish it! I blame it all on my bestie Di who got me into quilting after she took it up when she retired and gave me some of her patterns and now my stash of fabric is nearly as big as my stash of DP. It's a good job the quilt shop closed in town and is now a 20 minute car journey away!

Anyway, to make a quilt you cut up fabric into geometric shapes and then reassemble into patterns and as the cue word over at CASology is warm, the two things together sparked this idea.

I started by cutting a panel from off white card using a Port Sunny purchase from MFT to create my quilt shape, then cut the stitched panel from the center using another MFT Blueprints die. I kept the colourway simple, using the warm colours, orange, red and yellow, seen in Time Out's challenge and cut the shapes out of scrap, replacing the pieces flat into the panel. The sentiment, stamped in brown, is from a Christmas set but I think works well here. A quick and simple card that can be made in lots of different colours.

Please check out the rest of the LIMettes here for more fabulous geometric inspiration.

I'd like to join in over at:-

Love the design but it was the colours that stuck in my mind