Christmas Wrap-up

A picture-heavy post to finish the year's Christmas cards. First, the card I'm probably most proud of: the one to our son who adores West Highland Terriers but unfortunately this is the nearest he's ever likely to get to owning one!

The Westie, coloured using cheap coloured pencils from W H Smith, is a free download from Bird's Cards, which is an amazing collection of free resources for cardmakers. The reason I'm so proud, though, is that although I'm not an artist I in fact drew the tree by hand after watching a Youtube video! 

My second card is the one for my husband, the word art having been cut on my Sizzix Eclips:

The kisses were drawn in white gel pen and the stamped "Husband" is from Little Claire. Next up is an image from Mo's Digital Pencil, coloured in Promarkers with a sponged Memento Summer Sky background:

And last, but by no means least, the one to my father-in-law which uses Perfect Pearls on a stamped image from IndigoBlu, a chipboard word which I've coloured in gold & added some Anita's Clear Gloss. The remainder of the greeting is also from the IndigoBlu set. I'm entering this one into the current "Family" challenge over at Less is More:

Who's Turning Fifty?

I really liked the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch this week, so this was the basis for a card I needed to make for a decorator friend who turns 50 soon. I really enjoyed making this one!

The toolbox image is by Little Claire, coloured in Promarkers with shading added in coloured pencils. The red & dark grey backing card was plain white, edged in Promarkers, while the kraft cardstock backing was embossed with a mask by That Special Touch. The screw brads are by Creative Expressions.

The main text was stamped in various Hero Arts shades of grey & black ink; the alphabet stamps are really old ones by Club Scrap, while the rest of the sentiment was computer generated. This was the original sketch & I stuck to it fairly closely:

CAS Flowers

This week's sketch over at Cas(e) this Sketch! caught my eye again this week; after 4 failed attempts to make a card based on a different challenge sketch, the simplicity of this one really appealed. As the finished card is so CAS I'm also entering it into the challenge at Addicted to Stamps, and I've just discovered that I think it will qualify to be entered at Stamping Sensations.

The flower stamps are by Little Claire, stamped in Memento Fog & coloured with Promarkers. The cardstock from Limetree Crafts makes Promarker blending so easy even I can do it! The greeting is by Woodware, and I filled the centre of the large flower with American Crafts micro beads.

Sketch Saturday #316

This week's sketch over at Sketch Saturday was perfect for a card I wanted to make for someone who was a good friend of my late father. The image I chose will, I hope, please the recipient because it was painted by my Dad and I save these little works of art for people who I know will appreciate them, and for whom they will have special meaning.

As they are ATC-sized pictures, I keep the cards simple to make sure the image remains the focal point.

Cardstock: Limetree Crafts, Coredinations

Painting: Original watercolour copyright the estate of David Forrest

Backing paper: from stash

Stamps: Little Claire

Ink: Hero Arts

One for the Boys!

The challenge over at Passion for Promarkers this week is "One for the boys/men" and, as it's Father's Day I thought I'd play along. My father-in-law has always been keen on DIY so I decided to use the toolbox stamp from Little Claire, coloured with Promarkers. I love the woodgrain embossing folder used on kraft cardstock, I think it's perfect for men's cards. A brad shaped like a screw head finished it off nicely. I picked out some details of the stamped image with Anita's Clear Gloss, this is a close-up:

Stamp: Little Claire

Ink: Memento Gray Flannel

Embossing folder: Darice

Brad: Creative Expressions

Greeting: Computer generated

Turquoise Test

A flying visit to the Leigh Craft Show yesterday resulted in, amongst other things, some new cardstock by Limetree Crafts which is billed as good for stamping & Promarkers, so I decided to give it a try. A play with it last night resulted in the card above, which I'm entering into this week's challenge over at Less is More where it's a colour week and the theme is "A Touch of Turquoise" - although this is more than just a touch! The stamps are by Little Claire, the smaller one being another Leigh purchase to match the bigger stamp I've had for a while.

In case anyone's interested in what I thought of the card, this is the smoothest cardstock I've ever come across. I usually use 300gsm and thought that at 280gsm this might be too light for card bases but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it scores and folds well, making a sturdier card base than I expected. My first layer of Promarker colour seemed to be quite light and I discovered that's because there's a fair bit of bleed through to the reverse of the card, but there was no creep sideways over the stamped lines. Blending was extremely easy and I'm not particularly skilled with Promarkers! It's a pretty good white, too, although not quite as good as my previous favourite (Xerox Colotech Plus). You can see a bit more detail in the picture below.

 Stamps: Little Claire Flowerhead

Ink: Memento Teal Zeal

Promarkers: Tulip Yellow, Duck Egg, Cool Aqua

40 and Fabulous!

For once, I made a card which turned out just the way I intended.  Well, almost!  The inspiration for this card came from the front cover of a book I saw whilst browsing round a book shop.

It was created by drawing a dress template on tracing paper & cutting it out to make a mask. I originally intended to stamp through the mask using a background stamp but then hit on the idea of using Little Claire's Butterfly Tree stamp instead, coloured with Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paints. I need a new paintbrush so the painting doesn't stand very close scrutiny but luckily I think the overall effect works! 

The dark paint looked purple in the pot but by a stroke of luck I had some ribbon which perfectly matched the dark blue it turned out to be. I coloured over the numbers with a Sakura Stardust black pen to add a bit more sparkle & added a butterfly charm to finish.

Cardstock: Xerox Colotech Plus 300gsm

Stamp: Little Claire Butterfly Tree, Club Scrap

Computer-generated sentiment

Colours: Cosmic Shimmer Watercolour Indigo Sky, Marine Aqua

Ribbon: Dovecraft

Charm: From stash

Little Claire Butterfly Tree

I picked up the Little Claire Butterfly Tree set of stamps at a craft show at Leigh recently but this is the first time I've used them.  The colour scheme was decided by the backing paper I decided to use so I coloured the image with Promarkers to match, and although you can't see it I used Gellyroll Clear Stardust to add a bit of glitter.  The backing paper also had a touch of glitter.  The greeting was created in Craft Artist 2 Professional.

Little Claire Butterfly Tree stamps, backing papers Love Letters by Mindy Terasawa for First Edition Papers.

Little Claire Poppies again!

My sister loves poppies and she was the reason I bought the Little Claire Poppies die in the first place, so of course I had to use it for her birthday card this year.  I decided to keep it pretty simple and based this on a sketch I saw somewhere, but I forgot to note where.

This time I used Poppy (of course!) Promarker with some paper from my stash, mounted onto black Bazzill basics cardstock.

Stamp - Little Claire Poppies, Poppy Promarker, greeting stamp by Elzybells (no longer available), flat back gems to finish.

Little Claire Poppies & Cosmic Shimmers

I had to have this stamp as soon as I saw it as I love poppies, and this was my first attempt using Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paints.  I couldn't find any suitable matching backing paper and I was, of course, last minute making the card so I improvised and was quite pleased with how it turned out.  The card is 15cm x 15 cm and I discovered that, stamped twice, the stamp fitted perfectly as a border.  I inked part of the leaves 3 times as the corner decoration on the main image.

Little Claire Poppies stamp, Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paint in Lava Red on Royal & Langnickel  essentials watercolour paper, mounted on card from stash, greeting stamp by Elzybells (no longer available).