Rain Rain go away!!!!

Its been grey and rainy here for days now, so this card is quite appropriate (especially as i can't find a brolly any where in the house!!). I've used a fab free digi from CJ (Cowgirl Up Stamps) at Crafters Digital Art Centre to make this card which is for my friend who's been having a rough time. I hope it will cheer her up

The image is coloured with promarkers and I used clear EP to make a puddle and to add some raindrops to their umbrellas. The image is matted on to a layer of yellow card and a layer of red card that I stamped with a freebie stamp from Craft Stamper and embossed with white EP. I've followed this weeks sketch from Sketch and Stash and used a small scalloped decor plate (from Caroline's Rubber Stamps) for the scalloped circle and added some ribbon, flowers and buttons from my stash. I've used some yellow gingham paper for the background. The sentiment is from Elusive Images, stamped in Brilliance Rocket red on to an acrylic tag and embossed with clear EP. Its hard to see in the pic (I had to use the scanner as its so dark today) but it reads "Into every life a little rain must fall, Call me anytime you need an umbrella".

I'm also entering this card into the following challenges:

ABC Challenge - W is for Weather

Cooking it up with Katie: the recipe this week is "Use some green,add some embossing and inlcude a little ribbon"

Just Scraps - Play with the primary colours

Your next stamp challenge: Buttons

My time to craft- Xtra special (this card is for a special friend)

I hope the rain stays away for you today and thanks for looking

Claire xx

World Cup Fever

Its not long until the World Cup now and my son asked me to make a soccer themed card for him to send to my hubby for Fathers Day. As soon as I saw CJ's fab images 'Soccer Boy' and 'Flam'en Soccer ball', I knew they would be perfect to make a fun Fathers Day card.

It was a quick and easy card to make, I coloured the images with promarkers and cut them out. I used 4 of the soccer ball images and left the flames on just one of the coloured images. I made the mini 'pitch' for the background with some plain green and white card from my stash and mounted the plain balls with foam pads. To make the flam'en ball and soccer boy stand out and give them some 'bounce' I attached them with some acetate which I scored to make a 'n' shape, sticking one leg of the 'n' to the base card and adding the image to the outer leg of the 'n'. I've tried to take a photo but its so dark and dismal here I can't get the acetate to show up at all.

I'm entering my little soccer boy into the following challenges:

Sew Many Challenges: make a Father's Day card without using the colour blue

Cards for Men: Father's Day

I love Digi: For my Dad

Pile it on: Quirky

Craftalicious: a new challenge blog with the  theme of 'New' (this is a new image to my collection)

thanks for looking

Claire xx

Penny and Junior

Here is a summery card to brighten up a dull and rainy day, I've used two images from Michelle Perkett Studios - Penny and Junior, how cute are they????

Penny and Junior are both printed on to pearlescent card and coloured with promarkers, poor Penny looks like I've cut her had and part of her head off, I haven't honest lol. Penny overlaps the edge of the card but its too dark to take a photo today and the scanner won't behave today lol.

I've cut an aperture in some orange Bazzil bling card and attached it with 3d foam tape to Junior. Then matted on some blue card. To finish off i've attached Penny with 3d foam and added some dots with my Viva peal pen. This is a new toy and I love it, I think I'll have to get some more of these :)

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Michelle Perkett Studio: Summer

Everybody Art Challenge: Summer

Incy Wincy Designs: For the little ones

Cupcake Craft Challenge: Summer Delights

The Pink Elephant : Gotta Wear Shades

Raise the Bar: Celebrate Summer

Papertake Weekly challenge: Fun Fun Fun!

Thanks for looking and have a peaceful Sunday whatever the weather is doing

Claire xx

Whiff of Joy Blog Candy

Have you seen this fabulous blog candy? Katharina is giving away 2 sets of these gorgeous WoJ stamps to celebrate reaching 1000 followers over on her Whiff of Joy blog. Aren't they gorgeous?
Claire xx

Feathered Friends

This weeks challenge at CD Sunday is 'Feathered Friends' and I've used some feathers kindly donated by my own feathered friend Sammy the yellow crowned amazon parrot! Don't worry, no parrots were harmed in the making of this card lol, he's moulting like mad and I always save his feathers as they are soooooo pretty. I'd love to take some pics of him so I could show him off, he's a real darling, especially as his party piece is to  lift one wing up and say 'Tickle, tickle tickle', he is soooooooo funny and such a flirt with women (he hates men tho lol).  Unfortunately he hates having his photo taken too and attacks the camera tee hee.

The BP is from Butterfly Bliss CD by artylicious, I think this is one of my favourite papers on any cd, i love the misty peaches and greens. Its printed on to pearlescent paper and distressed with my craft knife. I've used yellow bazzill bling cardstock for the base card and some brown card to mat the bp on. I've used a torn scrap of card for the branch and the owl is a glimmer chip which i've glimmer misted and inked with sepia versafine. I've added Sammy's feathers and used a stampbord square which is inked and stamped with a little bird from Elusive Images. The sentiment is also from Elusive images.

I'm also entering this little fella in the following challenges:

Sunday Stamper: Wings of a Dove

Just Scraps: Dandelion Yellow

My time to Craft: Wild Thing

Quixotic Challenges: Go Wild

Right, thats me crafted out for today. I've got some gorgeous new beads to play with and my seat booked on the sofa to watch BGT

Thanks for looking everyone

Claire xx

Lou in Sleepy Hollow

I thought the lovely Lou from Cowgirl Up  Digital Stamp'en Ranch would be perfect for this weeks challenge from Burtonesque Dolls where the challenge is to create a 'Sleepy Hollow' inspired sene. I've had a lovely messy,inky time making this acetate easel card with Lou escaping from the spooky forest.

The base card is Bazzill Bling cardstock and I've made an easel card with a frame to let light through the acetate (it looks gorgeous and sparkly but a nightmare to get a photo as its so bright today). For the background I've used the 'Caught in Crystal' technique with lots of purply inks, mica powders, glitter and of course floor polish backed with some tissue paper. I've overstamped this with tree stamps from Elusive Images using Black Magic embossing powder. Lou is coloured with promarkers and I've attached her with foam pads to make her look as if she is running out of the forest. To embellish the card I made some flowers from old newspaper scrunched up and inked. I had a bash at making my own shimmer sprays for this card - water, tinkabella inks and mica powder and I'm really pleased with the result. I used black and purple inks for the flowers and added irridescent black seed beads for the centres. I made a beaded pin with beads from my stash and a couple of head pins and attached the two ends with silicone glue to look like a pin through the flowers. To finish off I added some clear charcoal crystal gems.

I'm also entering Lou into the following challenges:

Tuesday Taggers: Touchy Feely Textures (there is a fab prize on offer too from Tanda stamps)

C.R.A.F.T challenge: Use newsprint

Stamp Something: Digi Day

Alphabet Challenge: F is for Flowers

Totally Papercrafts: More than one fold

One stop craft challenge: Make your own DP (I hope my messy acetate sheet counts as a DP)

Thanks for looking, I hope all my blogland friends are having a good weekend and enjoying some sunshine

Claire xx

Bah Humbug GDT spot - Acetate

What a happy bunny I was to be picked for June's Guest Designer spot over at Bah Humbug. I've been entering their weekly challenge since it started in January and now have a box brimming over with Christmas cards so a big thank you to Ann, Irene and Max for organising the challenge and keeping us all one step ahead. We're going to be soooooo smug in December when all our cards are ready (dare I confess though that I haven't done any of the inserts?)

Anyway the challenge this week is to use Acetate in your creation. Now I just love working with acetate - glittering it, using it for shaker cards but for this project I decided to make an easel card with an embossed acetate overlay

I made a background using my brayer and the bluey green end of a Big & Juicy Hydrangea ink pad. I kept it fairly light and masked off a moon and added some darker teal coloured hills in the foreground. I then stamped Santa in his sleigh and Magnolia trees. I addeda little colour to the trees with a marine promarker and then a little glitter to make them look frosty. Tilda was stamped onto a piece of card and coloured with promarkers and attached with 1mm foam pads to give just a little dimension. I made the background for the sentiment using the same ink pad and my brayer.

I then made the acetate overlays using Tim Holtz snowflake stamps and white EP. I was well chuffed as I usually buckle the acetate and have to start again but it worked first time. The acetate overlays were attached with white eyelets and a little turquoise organza ribbon.

Thanks to Ann, Irene and Max for letting me loose on the challenge lol and to you for looking.

I hope you will find time to join the challenge this week, I'm really looking forward to seeing your 'Acetate' creations

Claire xx

Crafty Ann's GDT card - National Flag

 I was so happy when Ann asked me to be the Guest Designer for June over at Crafty Ann's Challenge blog as I love working with Ann's images and papers - they are gorgeous and so reasonable in price too ( pop over to Crafty Ann's Digi Shop and have a look. I've got to admit this weeks challenge did make me scratch my head a little at first,  we are challenging you to use the colours of your national flag in celebration of the world cup which is starting on June 11th (you can add skin colours/gold/silver/leaves etc though). Anyway I got my thinking head on and came up with this using red and white the colours of the English flag which is St. George's Cross. I've also used the design of the flag as the basic layout for my card.

I've made an 8x8 white base card and used a 7.5" square of red card behind 4 mats of white card which I put through my cuttlebug using the swiss dots folder. The next bit was the fun bit. I printed off a couple of sheets of  Crafty Ann's Abstract 2 Brights Collection in red (I love this pattern, so vibrant!!) and then put it back through the printer and printed Crafty Ann's Long Petal Flower over the top of both sheets.

I then cut the petal layers and leaves out and curled them round my pokey tool to give them a bit of dimension. I gave the petal layers a good blast of cosmic shimmer mist in Lava Red for a little extra bling and left them to dry. Once they were dry I layered them up and added gold microbeads to the centres of the flowers. Next came the leaves, as I'd printed them out on the red abstract BP, I had a heap of lovely red leaves. As I'm a bit of a meany I didn't want to waste them so I turned them over and coloured the backs with promarkers and then embossed the veins with my little ball tool to give the leaves a bit of texture.

All that was left to do was arrange the flowers on a circle of red card and pop the leaves in around the edge. I've really loved using these flowers, I've used them as the focal point on this card but they'd make beautiful embellishments for any card. Ann was one step ahead of me too, anyone who visited Ann's blog last week will have noticed that she now has a range of these fabby flowers precoloured!!

Thanks for having a peep at my card, I do hope you'll join us over at Crafty Ann's Challenge. After all the world cup is something to celebrate for us crafters - while our menfolk are glued to the tv we can craft in peace lol

Claire xx 

Home Sweet Home

Home sweet home is this weeks challenge from Cynthia over at Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog. A very quick card from me this week as the bank holiday has confused me completely lol

The image is one kindly sent to me by a Rainbow friend, coloured with promarkers and mounted on to a scrap of green shimmery card. I made the background using distress inks and Elusive images leaf stamps and added some green ribbon to finish the card off

Thanks for looking

Claire xx

Won't I be organised for Christmas??

Yes, of course I will, thanks to the gang at Bah Humbug keeping me on my toes. Their challenge this week is Silhouettes and after I'd been through all my stamps and not found a single silhouette stamp I decided to have a bash at making my own using this little girl stamp from Joanna Sheen (I totally forgot I had the Dancing with Shadows CD, doh!!)

I've made an 8x8 shaker card based on this weeks sketch from Sketch Saturday. I stamped the little girl onto pearlescent card and coloured her with dark grey promarkers and blender pen. I used black tapestry card with its lovely texture and detail, cut an oval on my cricut attached some acetate. I added some white lace and clear gems to another strip of tapestry card and mounted it with foam pads. I stamped the text (from Elusive Images) onto white pearl card, added some sparkly white stuff (from the scrap store) and mounted the black layer with shaker tape.To finish off I glittered some white snowflakes cut on the trusty cricut with Glenda's Glitter in Snowflake and added some more lace and a black bow to the bottom

I'm also entering this card into the latest challenge from Our Creative Corner which is to make a B&W card with focal text and lots of texture

Thanks for looking

Claire xx

Cowgirl n Pony

Hi everyone, hope you are all enjoying the bank holiday weekend. I've made this card with a gorgeous freebie image from CJ at Cowgirl Up Stampen Ranch, Isn't she a cutie? Why not pop over and have a look round the shop - CJ has the most gorgeous digistamps to tempt you.

The image is printed on to pearlescent paper which is fab for promarkers, they blend really well on this stuff (I just wish I could remember where I got it lol). I usually struggle colouring animals but  I used my trusty promarkers and I'm quite pleased with the pony. I dusted the edges of the image with some fresh green versamagic ink and then ran around the edge with opera pink ink. I've followed this weeks sketch from Papertake Weekly Challenge using some papers that were free with Making Cards magazine ages ago. I've added some flowers, brads, a little butterfly charm and some spirals of green memory thread to finish off.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Creative Card Crew where the challenge is 'Pink and Green'

Creative Cottage where the challenge is 'Blooming Charming'

One Stitch at a Time who are asking us to use something new (my new item is the lovely image)

Passion for Promarkers: Anything goes (its my second entry for this challenge - wow you need to see the FAB prizes they have up for grabs to celebrate their first anniversary)

Lily, the fairy of Enchantment

I've used the beautiful Lily (from Michelle Perkett's Etsy store here) to make this card  for the challenge this week at Michelle Perkett Studio where the challenge is to use circles and ribbon, Lily was the perfect image to start with as she has that lovely circle background but I also used lots of circles of scrap paper to make the flowers and added a little ribbon and some spirals of memory thread between them

I made an 8x8 base card and distressed the edges with copper brilliance ink. The layout of the card is courtesy of the gorgeous sketch from Truly Scrumptious where the challenge this week has the optional extra of embossing. I've used a K&co bp and then embossed some peach card and some green whitewash coredinations card through my cuttlebug. I sanded the whitewash card to let the green show through and highlighted the embossing on the peach card with copper brilliance ink.

Lily is coloured with promarkers and has highlights of chantilly lace glitter on her wings and flowers. I made some more scrunched paper flowers but instead of fastening them with a brad in the centre, i added a good dollop of glue and some irridescent lime seed beads. To finish off, I used some little pastic circles (from our local scrap store) and glued more beads to them. I've had a job getting a photo as its so dull and dismal today, the colours are really bright and zingy in the flesh.

I'm also entering Lily into the following challenges:

Crafty Ann's Challenge: Lots of colour (Ann and the team have a blog hop at the min with some fab prizes so pop over and have a peep )

Quixotic Challenge: Emboss it!

My time to craft challenge: Vivid greetings card

Passion for Promarkers: Anything goes (some great prizes there too as the team are celebrating their first anniversary)

Flutter By Wednesday: An open theme but of course including an angel, fairy or butterfly

Thanks for looking, I'm just about crafted out for today

Claire xx

Something Completely Different .... Crowns

I've never made a 'twinchie' before so this weeks challenge from Something Completely Different certainly was different for me. The challenge this month is to make a 'twinchie' (2"x2") with the theme this week of 'crowns'. I used up more leftover bits from my desk to make this

I've covered a square of greyboard with  some glimmer misted paper from an old book and distressed the edges with brilliance lightening black ink. I've coloured Patty with promarkers and cut her out. Patty was a freebie I got from Cowgirl Up earlier this year, CJ has some gorgeous images and at the minute she has a fab sale with 25% off - be quick though cos the sale ends soon. Patty is in disguise today as she usually wears a top hat but I've replaced that with a crown for this challenge. The crown is a chipboard shape, coloured with opera pink ink and overstamped in black with a Tim Hotz background stamp. I then triple embossed it with clear ep and added some little black gems. I used a scrap of card, stamped with the same background stamp and punched a couple of butterflies using an Anna Griffin punch and added some more black gems. To finish off I added a little drop of glossy accents to Patty's eyes to highlight them

Thanks for looking

Claire xx

Dragons Dream Tag it on.... Surprise

As usual Frankie has set a great challenge at Dragons Dream Tag it On This week, she wants us to surprise her but we have to use whats already on our desk. I was at an advantage with this one, as usual I've got loads of things started and soooooo much stuff on my desk the challenge began with 'Where's my desk' lol. Anyway I decided to use the bits left over from the last card I made and came up with this tag

For the tag base, I spritzed my craft mat to use up the left over spray already on it, although it was mainly red ink its diluted with the water and looks pink. I cut the tag shape and stamped a butterfly out of the card and distressed with some Lightening black brilliance ink. I'd got a pile of circles cut from old book pages so I mopped some more ink up with them and crumpled them up. When they were dry I distressed them with the same brilliance ink and layered them up. For the centres I used some jewellery findings I got from the scrap store with a blob of glue and some black glitter in the middle. I had a piece of card stamped with a Tim Hotz quote that was headed for the bin as I hadnt got a very good impression so I distressed the edges with my craft knife and them some Aged Mahogony distress ink and stuck the butterfly over the blurred bit. I used my favourite (of the moment, it changes every week) Sweet Pea stamp for the fairy, coloured with promarkers and cut out. I wanted a 'watered down' version of the burgundy for her wings so I used the blender pen with  a little colour added to the chisel end to dilute it. To finish off - a couple of black gems and a scrap of bra strap elastic for the hanger.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

ABC Challenge: V is for Vintage

Crafts and Me Challenge: Distressed 

Crafty Creations: Use your favourite stamp

Cooking it up with Katie: the recipe is use wings, petals and pink

Cute card Thursday - No designer papers

Allsorts: Black, white + one other colour

Thanks for looking, I hope you are enjoying the bank holiday weekend

Claire xx

First card of the weekend and exciting news!

I've had a lovely crafty start to my long weekend off and finished this card for the challenge from Cowgirl's Sunday Stamp'en Challenge which is to use Black, White and Red. I am so excited as i've been invited to join the DT at Cowgirl Up, I love working with CJs stamps so I'm one very happy bunny. Anyway enough chat, here is my card which uses the Cowgirl Up image  'Cups_Lou', I love this image as she looks such a party animal

I've made a 8x8 card from A4 white hammered cartstock for this card and stamped the Elusive Images corner stamps directly onto the base card with black versafine. I've then added a scrap of red card and some black trim i got from the local scrap store. I think its actually bra strap elastic as its soooooo strong and stretchy you could nearly use it to bungee jump lol.

 I've stamped the Tim Holtz quote onto white card, mounted onto black card and rounded the corners of both and attached it with foam tape.Lou is coloured with promakers and attached with silicone glue

 I made some flowers from some  pages from a book I've started to alter. I saw them on my friend Janet's blog (have a look, they are really easy to make) and thought they were so gorgeous i had to have a play. I cut out 5 circles of paper for each flower and sprayed them with loads of Lava Red cosmic shimmer mist and used black button brads for the centre. I got in such a mess making these lol, here is a pic of my hands AFTER I'd washed them

I look like I've been killing a pig as my granny would have said.

I'm also entering this card in to the following challenges:

Gingersnaps Random Redhead GC55 Challenge: Quotes

Magical Crafts: Black, White + one more colour

Sketch &Stash - I've rotated the sketch and the black trim is new stash from my trip to the scrap store, everything else is from my untidy craft room

Cupcake Craft Challenge: Black, grey + 1 other

Tanda Teaser: Xtra Large

Thanks for looking

Claire xx