Happy Birthday (to me?!)

This week I was fortunate enough to be picked by the Craft Barn's metaphorical hat and as such had a voucher to spend on this lovely new stamp! This is my first card with it and I thought I could use it to enter a few challenges.

I stamped the corner flourish once directly on the card and a second time so I could cut out the flowers, curl the leaves and mount them for a 3D effect. I've used various inks and promarkers to colour, and finished with liquid pearls and wink of stella.

This is a closer photo so you can see the shine from the wink of stella a bit better.
The sentiment stamps are from craftwork cards.

I'd like to enter the following challenges with this card;
Less is more 3 stamps (the corner flourish, and the two words which are separate stamps)
Stamping sensations - One for the girls
Simon Says Stamp - Make it girlie
AAA cards - Anything clean and simple
Penny Black and more - Happy Birthday

Sunshine on a rainy day

My lovely Mum (who seems to feature quite regularly on my blog in one way or another) sent me a surprise crafty parcel not so long ago. In it, amongst other things, was a lovely beachy stamp set and some seagull ribbon. She challenged me to make a card incorporating both. This one is actually my third attempt as I wasn't keen on the first two. I stamped the three little beach huts side by side and coloured with watercolour pencils. Matted, mounted and added the ribbon, simples!
 I'd like to enter this in to the Less is More 'use three stamps' challenge and AAA cards anything clean and simple goes challenge.

Tickled PINK!

I picked up a crafting magazine this week as I rather liked the look of the freebie flamingo die that came with it - perfect for casology's PINK theme.

For some reason the picture has come out a little red looking, I can assure you it is an unashamed shocking bright pink in real life! I die cut the flamingo twice on opposite sides of the card to get a mirror image, stamped hero arts alphabet stamps to create the greeting and added baby pink heart gems. Finally I mounted the whole thing with foam pads on to the aforementioned bright pink card.

As well as casology, I'd also like to join in with AAA cards anything goes theme. 

D is for...

This evening I'm sharing my latest dictionary creation. It's 'D with a twist of pink' this fortnight and having scoured the D's there were three words I could have chosen. I have to say, on the whole the letter D makes some fairly depressing reading what with all the 'de' and 'dis' prefixed words, not to mention all those associated with death.

Still, nothing depressing here... I went with dandelions, dragonflies and daisies!

The stamps are Crafty Individuals build a meadow set which I first came across at a Helen Chilton class at the craft barn... it seems we've come full circle! 

I think this would have benefited from me dulling down the text in the background a bit first but I was a bit shy on time. To help define each flower I added some white gel pen to the daisies, wink of stella to the dandelions and the all important touch of pink to the seed heads. The dragonflies also have wink of stella on their wings but unfortunately it didn't want to be photographed today!

As the three words all occurred on different pages, the definition I have highlighted is the one for dandelion.

As well as the craft barn challenge, this seems just fitting for the Craft Stamper spring flowers challenge and stamping sensations, one for the girls challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lou x

Geom-etris

The challenge set by Less is More this week is to create a one layer card incorporating geometric shapes. I wanted to have a purpose my shapes and have spied some lovely cards in the gallery that do just that (still swooning over the ones with honeycomb hexagons!)

So I thought, what is Geometric? And while the answer could be many many things, Tetris, popped in to my head! The retro computer game where you have to slot geometric shapes in to one another... it probably has something to do with my (slightly geeky) husband being really in to his retro gaming...

Anyway, this is what I created...

It was slightly more challenging to create than you might think and I have safely concluded I would be hopeless at the game as it gave me brain ache just trying to slowly slot the shapes in to one another, let alone at speed! 

I happened upon a tiny trio of square stamps in my stash and used these in the original Tetris colours and shapes. I drew a reverse L in the corner of each little square with a pro marker, and added glossy accents over them all. The sentiment is from Woodware. 

I would have liked to have used a black card base but the colours wouldn't have come through properly so I have made my peace with it!

Simon Says Stamp are celebrating 7 years with a Birthday special so I am linking in there too today - Happy Birthday SSS!

Rabbits and Ovals

I thought I was going to have to let this fortnight's Craft Barn challenge pass me by as I couldn't find any way of creating an oval but I finally had a brain wave this morning, and here we are, just in time. I had a quick rummage through the left over recycling and found an old Easter egg box, bingo! It had an oval shape cut in the front - the perfect stencil for my needs! The oval was rather small so I made a little note card. As Easter is over for this year I wanted to make something that could be sent anytime.
I came up with this using Card-io and Stampendous stamps and distress inks. I finished it with wink of stella and liquid pearls.

Apologies for the awful photo, taken in the dark this evening and my camera has an absolute hissy fit if I try to use the flash!

Happy Birthday!

Today I'm sharing with you a card I've made for my friends birthday. I had an exciting delivery of a craftwork cards goody box this week and so the card base and sentiment are from them. The stamp is of course penny black and I've added a few embellishments to finish off.

I'd like to enter this in to the following challenges;

Simon says stamp- Happy Birthday
Allsorts - Purple passion
Penny black and more - Birthdays
Penny black Saturday - April Showers
The Craft Barn - April Showers