Cricket, Lovely Cricket!

Wonders will never cease - two entries for this week's LIM die cut challenge! The added challenge I set myself at this time every year is to come up with something different on a cricket theme for our nephew's birthday.

This particular card was inspired by Chrissie's cards using Memory Box dies. I downloaded some free cricket pictures from the internet, did a huge amount of editing, welding etc in Craft Artist 2 Professional & Ecal before cutting the finished article on my Sizzix Eclips. My original attempt at clear embossing the greeting then overspraying with Promarkers using my airbrush was a dismal failure, so I re-did the airbrushing then overstamped instead with a greeting by Clearly Besotted. A few brads (coloured with Promarkers) kept the overall look CAS.

White cardstock: Limetree Crafts

Green cardstock: Coredinations Mantis

Promarkers: Pear Green, Olive Green

Ink: Yinks Olive Green

Greeting stamp: Clearly Besotted

LIM - One Layer week 158 Take 2

Wonders will never cease - a second entry for the same challenge. Again, the One Layer Anything Goes challenge at Less is More. For reasons I won't bore you with, this card was a very quick one to make.

The butterflies are Hero Arts stamps, masked then sponged over the top using an Imagination Crafts Honeysuckle stencil. The greeting was computer-generated in Craft Artist 2 Professional.

The largest butterfly was stamped onto the card & also onto a piece of vellum, which was then attached & the wings lifted. Although it's difficult to photograph, the smaller butterflies & some detail on the larger butterfly with glittered with some clear Wink of Stella.

Cardstock: Anna Marie Designs

Ink: Memento Elderberry

Stencil: Imagination Crafts Honeysuckle

Stamps: Hero Arts

Butterfly Heart

This card is a kind of "homage" to one of my favourite cardmakers, Michelle Short who makes the most gorgeous cards over at the Card Grotto. A couple of times this week she's posted cards made using a die from Memory Box but as I recently bought a second hand Eclips & the Ecal software to go with it I decided to have a go at creating something similar, and this is the result.

Ecal is really easy to use so the heart only took me about 30 minutes to create in the software - getting it to cut properly out of 300gsm cardstock took a bit longer! I really should buy some new blades as I'm still persevering with the used ones that came with my machine and they are definitely past their best. Still, I eventually worked out the settings as you can see below:

The finished heart is 10.5 cm across (just over 4 inches), each one of the butterflies is 1.5 cm across at its widest point (just over half an inch) so you can see how intricate the cut is. I created the greeting in Craft Artist 2 Professional and mounted the whole thing on pearlescent DCWV cardstock. A bit of Wink of Stella clear on the capital letters & I decided to call it quits. Hope you like it!

I'm joining the linky party over at Croft Crafts this week, why not take a look?

Cardstock: Xerox Colotech Plus 300gsm, DCWV 

Fabulous 50

My sister asked me to make a card for a good friend of hers, a lovely lady who was my son's Year 6 teacher. She's very feminine so I took the opportunity to make a variation on a dress card I've seen a few times on the internet, using some papers I've had in my stash for ages.

I got the template from here, using old-fashioned tracing methods & cutting out by hand. I used my Wink of Stella on the bodice (although you can't see it on any of the photos, unfortunately) and found some matching ribbon in my stash. 

The ribbon buckle is from Meiflower and that was the only tricky part of the card, because the skirt sticks out so I found it difficult to get the buckle to lie flat. The greeting was created in Craft Artist 2 Professional then cut from a modified Spellbinders tag die.

A normal envelope wouldn't do for this, of course, so I made my own, decorated with matching papers:

Cardstock: Xerox Colotech Plus

Papers: Cart-Us Romantic Flowers

I've never participated in a blog link party before but there's a first time for everything, so I'm taking part here.

Christmas Catch-up Part 2

This was our son's Christmas card this year. As an avid guitarist the phrase "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" seemed most appropriate.  I was going to cut out the tree & guitar on my new Eclips but ended up doing it by hand (long story!). I got the tree from here then paper-pieced it. The guitar was stamped in Adirondack Red Pepper then glittered with my Wink of Stella clear pen & the rest was done in Craft Artist 2 Professional:

Cardstock: Xerox Colotech Plus

Ink: Adirondack Red Pepper

Stamps: Inspired by Stamping

Kusadama Flowers

I love taking part in challenges when I get the chance. This week over at Less is More the challenge is to use designer paper in a CAS way - a perfect opportunity to make kusadama flowers, something I've wanted to try for ages. I needed a thank you card for my sister, who was my son's sponsor at his confirmation last night and I know she'll love them. The papers are by K & Company.

The greeting & stems were created in Craft Artist 2 Professional, and I coloured the text to match the paper.

As you can see, they certainly don't lie flat so this presented another opportunity - this time, to use my new metric Scor-Pal, which I've wanted for ages & treated myself to at the NEC the other week. I adapted a box design which I found on the web and created a custom made box to present the card in.

Papers: K-ology Addison, code 628052

Rock Star Red

This had to be a quick card - my son only told me at 9pm last night that it had been his friend's birthday yesterday!  As his friend plays the electric guitar it was an ideal opportunity to test out my first Ebay purchase: Inkadinkado Rock Star stamps. A card I'd seen recently in red, black & kraft was the inspiration for the colour theme.

I started with the main image, which was stamped in Pearlescent Poppy Brilliance Ink then embossed.  The embossing was a bit uneven but as I planned to make the card quite grungy I decided to just go with it and sponged round the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink:

The background was a combination of more stamps from the Inkadinkado set, and stars sponged through a mask, all with Pearlescent Poppy again which I discovered isn't pearlescent on kraft cardstock!  The greeting was created in Craft Artist 2 Professional using Retro Rock Poster font.

Cardstock: Papermania Kraft, Xerox Colotech 300gsm, black from stash

Inks: Pearlescent Poppy Brilliance, Distress Black Soot

Embossing Powder: Papermania

Mask: maker unknown

Men!

They're so difficult to make cards for, aren't they?  I needed to make a couple of men's cards but didn't have much time, so this image from the Digistamp Boutique came in handy.  I resized it in Craft Artist 2 Professional & coloured it with Promarkers.  The greetings are from Craftwork Cards (also coloured with Promarkers) and the backing papers I designed in Craft Artist, colouring them to match - yes, you've guessed it! - Promarkers.

Cardstock: Xerox Colotech Plus 300gsm

Backing papers: Designed by me

Digistamp Boutique Birthday Card

The new flower stamp releases at Digistamp Boutique caught my eye straight away (and were on special offer!) so I just had to have them. There are some lovely samples on the website & I originally planned to use kraft cardstock, but once I started making this card for a friend I changed my mind and this just evolved into the finished article.

I imported the flower stamp & greeting (part of the set) into Craft Artist 2 Professional & added the lines.  Then I decided a bit of bling was required so I used Crystal Glamour Dust on some of the dots and mounted the finished image on black card.  Done!

Cardstock: Xerox Colotech Plus 300gsm

Digital stamp & greeting: Digistamp Boutique

Crystal Glamour Dust

Happy Mother's Day

This is my card for my lovely Mum and, as often happens, the end result doesn't remotely resemble what I'd planned!  I fell for the Sketchy Flowers set at Digistamp Boutique and loved the card Kerry Cox (aka Pickle) had made, so intended to do something similar.
Once I'd got going, though, I decided to colour one of the flower images using a Lavender Promarker; I imported the image into Craft Artist 2 Professional and recoloured it.  When I'd finished colouring the flower I decided it was too "flat", despite shading & blending.  As an experiment I went over the flower with short strokes of a Copic Blending Pen as I know that, unlike the Promarker Blender, it tends to bleach the colour out and I quite liked the resulting effect. Still in Craft Artist 2 Professional, I recoloured some backing paper to match & made the word art.  I cut a couple of slits in the card either side of the flower stems & threaded some matching ribbon through before tying it in a bow.
Once the card was assembled it looked ok but just not quite special enough.  Then a discussion about micro beads on the Docrafts forum made me realise what was missing - a bit of bling!  I took the card apart & used some Glossy Accents to attach some Sweet Poppy Clear Micro Beads as flower centres.  Then I covered a new piece of backing paper in double sided adhesive sheet & attached the micro beads to that.  Although I think the beaded flower centres work well, the subtle pattern on the backing paper doesn't show through the beads so I'd use a stronger-patterned paper next time as it was an easy technique to do.

Cardstock: Xerox Colotech Plus 300gsm

Digistamp: Digistamp Boutique Sketchy Flowers

Coloured with Lavender Promarker.

Sweet Poppy Micro Beads.

Not So Hairy Biker!

My next door neighbour will be 60 on Friday; a few years ago he achieved a long-held ambition to buy himself a motorbike. We frequently rib him about being an ageing biker so when I saw this digital stamp at karensdoodles.com I just had to buy it, even though the biker in the stamp has more hair than my neighbour!

Having recently got hold of a copy of the Docrafts Chronology CD which came free with the Docrafts magazine I really wanted to use one of the backing papers and once I'd decided which one, I felt the card needed a suitable border to finish it off.  I created the border in Craft Artist 2 Professional, exported it as a png file to use in Silhouette Studio & cut it out on my Craft Robo Lite.  The cogs border and the numbers (also cut on my Robo Lite) were coloured with Promarkers, as were the digital stamp & the grey card.

For once the card came out exactly how I planned it in my head - a rare event!

Base cardstock: Xerox Colotech Plus 300gsm

Cogs/numbers cut from Tesco Executive 160gsm

Backing paper: Docrafts Chronology

Promarkers: Cardinal Red, Satin, Denim Blue, Ice Grey 1, 2 & 4

Finished card size: 15cm square

Bright 50th

This card is for the 50th birthday of a very kind lady who spends a lot of time looking after her next door neighbour - my husband's aunt.  As her living room is black & red I just knew she'd love bright colours.

The starting point for this card was the chipboard numbers I'd made a few months ago for another friend's 50th but which, when they were finished, were too bright for that card.  They were coloured with Promarkers & given dimension using Anita's 3-D Clear Gloss.  I used Pink Petticoat backing papers (no longer available) but had to alter the colour slightly in Craft Artist 2 Professional to ensure they matched the numbers.  I also produced matching plain card in CA2P, too.

As I've been suffering from a distinct lack of mojo just lately I used a sketch from somewhere & kept it simple.

Card base: Craftwork Cards

Backing papers: Pink Petticoat

Diamante buckle: Meiflower

It's Elementary . . . .

. . . that I'd make my husband's 50th birthday card with a Sherlock Holmes theme; to say he is an avid fan would be a huge understatement.  I downloaded a copyright-free Sherlock image from the web then used Craft Artist 2 Professional to create the "smoke", making the number 50s smaller as they went further from the image and applying a fading transparency effect to make the smoke effect fainter.  The backing paper was also created in Craft Artist 2 Professional using the stamp mode.

Although creating the "smoke" was quite time-consuming, I was pleased with the finished effect and it turned out exactly how I wanted it to.  And the best part is, my husband loved it!

Image free from internet, "smoke" and backing paper created in Craft Artist 2 Professional.

Font Piranesi It BT.

Putting on the Glitz!

My nephew's girlfriend turns 21 tomorrow; she's a very pretty, girlie girl who - like most of her generation - loves shoes.  She also loves Cath Kidston so, although this isn't a Cath Kidston paper, I thought it was a similar style.  As I've had a couple of weeks off work over Christmas I had the luxury of time to play with my Craft Robo, so I downloaded a shoe font from the internet, tidied up the graphic in the Silhouette Studio software & cut the shoe out.  The greeting was produced in Craft Artist 2 Professional.

Although the shoe turned out exactly how I wanted it to, the completed card wasn't quite how I imagined it for a few reasons: one, I couldn't find matching cardstock for matting & layering so I had to improvise by using white linen card coloured with Promarkers & the ink seemed to dry patchy for once; two, the layout wasn't what I had intended as my first attempt didn't work out; three, I felt the greeting needed a bit more oomph but (as usual!) ran out of time.

Still, I'm not unhappy with the finished result & I hope Kasanita likes it, too.

Paper: My Mind's Eye Pretty Please

Stick on gems: Hobby House

Gemstone key: from Crafts4&2Do, St Helens