Spring Window Box MkII

Hello again! MkII of the window box card is for another three challenges - CAS(E) This Sketch:

The Paper Players Tic Tac Toe - I went for the right-hand column: Pearls, Birthday and Pink & Green.

And it's the last day of the washi tape challenge at Moxie Fab World:

So here's my window box MkII:

Same stamps, arranged ever so slightly differently and dotty washi tape instead of striped.  I added the pearls to the washi to make a very upmarket window box.  For my previous card I inked the twine with the chartreuse ink to match more closely, by trapping the twine onto the ink pad with my bone folder and dragging the twine through.  You know what's coming, don't you?  Yup.  I went to fold this base card and got a lovely smear of chartreuse ink across the top.  So I just got the pad and smeared it all the way round, leaving it slightly grungy.

Flowers and leaves - Paper Smooches Reflections

Happy Birthday - Hero Arts CL158 Cupcakes

Dotty washi tape

Green twine

Layered Cake

I found these strips of glitter card and pearlised card lurking in my stash, and they're perfect for the Moxie Fab World Ombré challenge.  I'd previously run them through my Xyron (remember those?) and there they have been sitting on the backing sheets for at least a couple of years, waiting to be loved.

The glitter inspiration came from the challenge at Pinspired.  Glitter and ombré.  Olé!

And the challenge at Less Is More is to use SCALLOPS, so I've added a dainty little scalloped doily.  Drawn a cake stand and topped it with a Prima flower.  Good enough to eat.

All card/papers by Craftwork Cards

Flower by Prima

Doily Punch by Martha Stewart

Grungy Chevrons

Susan is hosting this week's One Layer Wednesday, where the challenge is to use a geometric shape repeatedly (at least twice) on a one layer card, with embellishments kept to a minimum.  Seeing as my chevrons are supposed to represent candles, I thought the sequins were pretty essential to represent the flames (did it work?).  The marker ink pooled on the chevron stamp, which made the stamped image rather grungy, but I liked it.  I added some flicks of ink around the card to help with the grungy effect.

I used the colour scheme from ColourQ:

Believe it or not, the sentiment is actually green IRL (Versamagic Hint of Pesto) but in the pic it looks more like Hint of Sludge.

The challenge at Moxie Fab World is Chevrons.  There's also another Moxie Fab World challenge, ombré, but it's borderline whether this would qualify, so I'll have to think of another card for the ombré challenge.

Finally, the challenge at Simon Says is Anything Goes, so in it goes.

Congratulations with Beads

Just a quickie - been away at a christening over the weekend with no internet access - it's taken me ages to catch up in blogland!

Ok - this is for five challenges:

MUSE - inspiration provided by my blog friend Ardyth:

Paper Smooches SPARKS - inspiration from this photo:

A Blog Named Hero - Freestyle

Less is More - Recipe USE BEADS, and finally

Pattern Play - all the fun has finished, but I still wanted to link up my homework.

Off to a silk painting class...

Divide and Conquer

Day 3 of Pattern Play was all about using loud in-yer-face patterns and how to calm them down.  One treatment is to chop them up - divide and conquer! (That was our motto for dealing with our two kids when they were loud and in-yer-face btw.  Dividing and conquering.  Not chopping them up.)

I went a bid mad with the homework and made four cards using the same technique.  This first one I'm entering into the MUSE challenge which has Marion's card as the inspiration:

Hopefully you can see what inspiration I used for my card, but just in case - the large flower images and the blocks (mine are of DP rather than different shades).

Here are the four loud patterns that I worked with for my homework:

And here's the rest of my homework:

When I started this post, I had chosen this one for the MUSE challenge, but as I was uploading the photos, I changed my mind to the pink and plum one.  I might add some bling to the flower centres to this one to make up for rejecting it.

For the next two, I couldn't decide which sentiment/border to put with which card as each one changed the emphasis of the colours in the background.

So here's what I decided on - mainly because the green panel wasn't quite wide enough to sit on the pink card.

Back to school for Lesson 4 - I'm still behind!

More Pattern Play

When I finished Day 2 of Pattern Play last night, it was too late to start my homework, so I've been a busy little bee this afternoon, catching up so that I don't get detention at the end of the week.

I used a piece of blue gingham paper and resist-embossed the floral background stamp with Versamark, then covered it in Memento Danube Blue ink.  I blotted the excess off with a tissue then I ironed out the embossing.

The yellow flower is also a gingham pattern, which you can just about make out.  I've used the colour scheme from this week's ColourQ:

I'm rushing back to the classroom for Day 3.  I was never this keen at school ...

Hero Arts 3255R Signature Background
Craftwork Cards flower
Watlzingmouse sentiment

I'm Late!

I'm late on two counts.  No, wait - three:

• Joining The Pattern Play online card class
• Handing in my Day 1 homework (nothing's changed there, then)
• Joining the baker's twine trend (can you believe that I've left it till now?)

I joined my first ever online class, Pattern Play, last night so I'm nearly two days behind most people.  And I don't want to do the Day 2 lesson until I've finished and posted my homework for Day 1.  So today, I've spent a lot (and I mean a LOT) of time sifting through a few boxes of patterned paper and snippets, sorting them according to the principles learned in Lesson 1 in the hope that it would make it easier to use patterned paper.  And it's starting to.

Since I started blogging my style has gone CAS-er and CAS-er, which doesn't help the enormous stash of patterned paper that I have.  So when therapy comes along in the shape of a class on using patterned paper, there was only one thing to do - join in!

So here's my homework for Day 1, but just to complicate things, I've used the sketch from The Paper Players:

I'm off now to look at Day 2.

Space Dog

The challenge at CASology this week is closing very very soon, and I wasn't going to play along because I couldn't find any suitable stamps.

I've no spacemen, spaceships, rockets, monsters - but then I found this space dog lurking in a stamp set.  I like how he's a teeny tiny dog on a great big card.

The colour challenge at Dynamic Duos is black and yellow.  Perfect for a space dog.

Inkadinkado 99109 Patterned Pets

Penny Black 3669F Birthday Wish

Twenty Second

So here's the next 21st, which hits four challenges:

Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger for the mottled colour scheme and a touch of gold:

Less is More:

 Frame it!

Some part of your design should contain a frame of some description, it could be stamped, drawn,  doodled, die-cut or whatever your imagination dictates.

CAS(E) This Sketch (slightly re-arranged):

And CAS-ual Fridays:

CFC94: Use chipboard on your Clean And Simple creation

I painted the chipboard numbers white then ran them through my little Xyron Create-a-Sticker and dipped them in micro glitter.

The background panel is sponged Peacock Feathers and Bundled Sage distress inks, with Rubber Stampede A951E Paint Splatter stamped in Pine Needles distress ink.  The sentiment is from Woodware stamped in Versafine Onyx Black.

Here's a little close-up - I think I'll be finding fine glitter everywhere for the next few days!

Orange Flower

I made this card several days ago, but we've just not bonded - I can't decide whether I like it or not, but one of the challenges I made it for is closing in a few hours, so in it goes.

The nearly closing challenge at Muse is to use Therese's lovely card as inspiration:

And this week's One Layer Wednesday, hosted by Ardyth, is to create a one layer card using green orange and white.

The flower is Hero Arts K5414 Real Blossom, stamped in Spiced Marmalade distress ink, the sentiment is from Waltzingmouse, stamped in Memories Soft Leaf and Versafine Onyx Black, and the leaf border is from Hero Arts CL477 Delicate Leaf Clusters.  And a sprinkling of Stickles in the centre.

Spots and Stripes

I was going to post this one tomorrow, but didn't want to risk missing one of the deadlines, so you've got a double dose of me today.

This card started life using the inspiration photo from Runway Inspired Challenge:

And the fiendish theme from Less is More:

It's a really tricky one this week girls!

Not only is it 

ONE LAYER, 

but we are also asking you for 

SPOTS and STRIPES

Then I realised it loosely fitted CAS(E) This Sketch:

And the CAS-ual Fridays colour-blocking challenge:

CFC93: Use blocks of color in your Clean And Simple creations.

As always, projects are NOT limited to just cards :)

Happy Birthday from Creative Expressions Urban Beat

Stripes from Creative Expressions Urban Life

Oblong from Hero Arts LL871 Circles and Heart Fancy Notes

Dots made using a Dottorific Pen

Hello, I'm back!

I'm back from my travels around the world.  Actually, I've been back since mid-last week, but I think my mojo caught a later plane as it only arrived back today.  First, the card, then I'll tell you where I've been and what I've been up to.

The challenge at Addicted to CAS is Wings:

I've used the colours from The Paper Players challenge

And Craft Stamper Magazine, my favourite UK stamping mag, has its first blog challenge - Take It, Make It, where you TAKE a specified technique and MAKE something with it.  The technique for this first challenge is faux airbrushing.  The challenge is open for two months, so you've got plenty of time to join in.

The butterflies are masks using the large die from Clearly Besotted.  The script stamp is Hero Arts S1832 Italian Poetry and the Happy Birthday stamp is from Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler.  The colours are all distress inks - Peacock Feathers, Victorian Velvet, Peeled Paint and Walnut Stain.

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So where have I been?  Hong Kong, Australia and Thailand.  Both our sons have settled in Melbourne, so we had a stopover in Hong Kong to break the journey, then a couple of weeks in (very hot) Melbourne (first time we've all been together for four and half years - aaah!), then a week in (even hotter) Thailand.  We were looking forward to the cooler weather back home, and today it's snowing!  And it's been quite a challenge to readjust to UK time, and stay up beyond 6pm!

While we were in Melbourne I met up with my lovely blog friend Jenny from My Paper Epiphany - hi Jenny!  It's so nice that this obsession hobby enables us bloggers to make friends all over the world :)