Sweet Sunday Sketch

I needed a quick card & I liked the sketch over at Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge, coming up with this:

The card base was from my stash; the patterned paper is from the Teresa Collins Urban Market pad, and the stamps were by Papertrey Ink & Paula Pascual  for Personal Impressions, inked up in Memento Paris Dusk. The embossing folder is by Papermania.

New Beginnings

The challenge over at Less is More this week is "New Beginnings" & as some stress-relieving crafting was required I put my thinking cap on. This is what I came up with:

The words were computer-generated; the butterfly stamp is by Papermania & the buddleia stamp is by Unity Stamps, coloured using Cotman watercolours with a very pale watercolour sky to set the scene.

Best Dad!

Another card for my husband's birthday tomorrow, and this time I decided to play along over at Stamplorations as I really liked the current sketch. A really simple card, and very quick to do.

Card recipe:
Cardstock - Limetree Crafts, Crafters Companion Kraft
Stamps - Papremania, Woodware, Kirsty Wiseman for Personal Impressions
Inks - Memento Rich Cocoa
Promarkers - Promarker Caramel
Embossing folder - Sizzix Alterations Wood Planks
Screw brads - Creative Expressions

Stripes!

No, not just my new blog background! I've been taking the Pattern Play class at Online Card Classes, and that inspired me to make this quick card for a friend's son. Although I didn't plan it this way, it's also ideal for entering into the current challenge over at CASology where the cue card is "Stripe".

Stamps: Papermania Typography & Clearly Besotted
Ink: Hero Arts

Paper: Papermania

Black cardstock from stash

CTS #74

I needed to make a couple of cards for my father-in-law's birthday this week, and I really liked the sketch over at CAS(E) This Sketch so I decided to play along. This is the sketch:

I've also decided to play along at this month's Stamping Sensations challenge blog, where the theme is Anything Goes. The focal image is a stamp by Papermania which I coloured with Promarkers; the background swirl is created using an airbrush I bought recently. I discovered it's the same one that Stampin' Up used to sell; this was my first attempt to use it properly & I think I need a LOT more practice! It seemed like a lot of hard work just to get any ink out of it at all, but I eventually succeeded.

The greeting is by Clearly Besotted & it was inked up in Memento Tuxedo Black.

Easter Greetings

Easter, for me, isn't about cute bunnies & lots of chocolate (although I never say no to the latter, of course!) Easter is a religious festival, so the cards I make at this time reflect that. All that said, I don't believe in pushing my beliefs on anyone else, so I only send Easter cards to close family. I've had the Papermania Moments of Faith stamps for a while although they haven't seen ink too many times yet, so I decided to rectify that.

I'm really enjoying watercolour painting at the moment and this card is coloured using Derwent Academy pencils on watercolour paper. Here's a close up. Happy Easter!

Jump!

The cue card for this week's challenge over at CASology is "Jump" and, unusually for me, I made a card just for the fun of it - normally I need to have a person in mind. I've had this stamp set in for quite a while but have only used one of them before so this seemed like a good time to rectify that. I didn't like the "Hoppy Birthday" stamp which came with the set so I used a Craftwork Cards alphabet set instead. I coloured the image using Letraset Aquamarkers.

Cardstock: Anna Marie Designs

Stamps: Papermania Hot Diggity Dog "Treats" HOT 907100

Craftwork Cards Alphabet

Ink: Hero Arts Shadow Inks in Charcoal

Letraset Aquamarkers

Camper Van Card (MOJO303)

Another day, another blog post - this is one of my busiest times of year for card making!  This card is for a friend's daughter who is 15 today; she's mad on camper vans so when I saw these stamps I knew I had to have them.

The main image is stamped & coloured with Promarkers to match the Papermania backing papers. I am entering this card into this week's challenge at Mojo Monday.

Cardstock: The Range Linen 300gsm

Ink: Memento Gray Flannel, Brilliance Pearl Orchid

Stamps: DoCrafts HOT907100 Hot Diggity Dog (Treats),

Woodware FRCL134 (greeting)

Promarkers: Main colours - Rose Pink, Leaf Green

Papers: Papermania Tulip collection

Bus-mad Dave's 50th Birthday Card

A friend of ours turned 50 yesterday - but we only found out last night that it was his birthday!  So this card was hastily put together this morning and given the short notice I decided to stick with a formula which I've used before, but this time with a little twist.

As Dave spends most of his spare time travelling on strange buses I knew exactly which image I wanted to use: it's from the Papermania Portobello Road range of stamps, bought months ago with him in mind. I stamped it onto an Inkylicious tag inked round the edges once with a light colour & then on the very edges with a dark brown. 

The backing paper was created by scouring the internet for a timetable for a number 50 bus & printing it in sepia tones onto linen finish paper.  I then brayered over the top with Distress Antique Linen & sponged in various brown inks through an Imagination Crafts mask.

The numbers came out darker than I planned.  They started out as plain chipboard, coloured with Memento Rich Cocoa & double embossed with clear UTEE.  To try to balance out the dark numbers I inked the parcel twine I used on the tag with some more Rich Cocoa.

Stamps: Papermania Portobello Road

Cardstock: Papermania Kraft

Tag: Inkylicious

Linen paper: Paperchase Linen Embossed White 100gsm

Inks: Memento Rich Cocoa, Toffee Crunch, Peanut Brittle, Distress Antique Linen

Flutter Vine Birthday

This card was made using my some of my purchases from a craft show at Leigh the other week.  I bought my first Memory Box die, Flutter Vine, as I thought it would go with one of my purchases from a few weeks ago, the Papermania Whimsy Tri-Boss embossing folder.  The "frame" was cut using the Spellbinders Card Creator Matting Basics set B.

I was inspired by this card, and did initially brayer the embossing folder with Adirondack ink so that the embossed card was coloured but the result was too patchy so I decided white on white would have to do.  

Finished card size: A6

Cardstock: Colotech Plus 300gsm

Papermania Tri-Boss Embossing Folder: Whimsy

Memory Box Flutter Vine die

Adirondack Cool Peri Ink

Inkylicious Sympathy Card

I paid a fleeting visit to the craft show at Event City back in February - we would have stayed longer but it was so busy we really didn't enjoy it.  One stand I made sure I visited was Inkylicious where I bought some new Adirondacks & a number of stamps, including the Meadow Breeze set.  I then spent an enjoyable evening brayering & stamping a number of pictures to keep in stock for making quick cards.

Well, this week a close colleague's father passed away very suddenly so I decided one of the images I made the other week would be really appropriate to send from the rest of us in the office.  As the recipient is a man I tried to avoid the card becoming too feminine.

Base cardstock: from stash

Stamps: Inkylicious Meadow Breeze & Flight of Dreams (birds), 

Papermania Bunting by Lucy Cromwell (sentiment)

Inks: Adirondack Peach Bellini, Sunset Orange, Terra Cotta, Memento Tuxedo Black

Inky 40th Birthday

Ever had one of those crafting projects where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong?  Yes, of course you have!  This was one of those kind of projects for me.

The only thing I knew when I started to make this card was how I wanted the number 40 to look.  The number stamps are by Papermania; I masked them off & used stamps by Paula Pascual to create the flower pattern.  So far so good, until I tried to remove the masks in the centre of the numbers - I'd used temporary spray adhesive by Crafters Companion and when I took the masks away, off came some of the surface of the card, too.  Not to be deterred, I used my craft knife to cut out the centre of the numbers.

Once that was done I still had no idea of how I wanted the finished card to look, until I spotted this gorgeous card with a really unusual layout.  My next problem was that I had no card to match the Memento Elderberry ink I'd used for stamping, so I dug out some Neenah card which I've found to be pretty much useless for everything & found that it's also pretty much useless for directly applying lots of ink to, as it dries very patchy.  Eventually I got it to the stage where I was happy with it, so I let it dry then ran it through my Cuttlebug with a Swiss Dots folder to add some texture.

I decided some bling was definitely required & this is where I had my final problem - the Papermania Adhesive Jewels that aren't.  Adhesive that is.  I eventually managed to find enough that were sticky and decided that I wouldn't tempt fate by trying to add anything else!

Stamps: Papermania Typography, Paula Pascual PPCSA6006 Simple Flowers, greeting stamp Personal Impressions PICSA6220 "Love is the Thread" by Sue Dix

Ink: Memento Elderberry

Camper Van Dan

One of my son's friends celebrated his 13th birthday recently; he's mad on camper vans & is known as Camper Van Dan in our house!  When I saw this Papermania camper van stamp (part of the Urban Stamps range) I bought it with him in mind.  I've stamped & masked it then used Inkylicious Seascape Memories stamps to create the background scene.
All the colouring was done with Promarkers.  I spent ages trying unsuccessfully to create a sky and white fluffy clouds until I just gave up & coloured the sky with what I thought was going to be a solid blue colour.  However when it dried I really liked the effect - a happy accident!  I coloured the van to match the backing paper which is from my stash.

Stamps by Inkylicious (Seascape Memories) & Papermania (PMA 907126), greeting stamp by Elzybells (no longer available), number stamps by Kirsty Wiseman for Personal Impressions (PICSA6274).

13th Birthday Boy

Today is my son's 13th birthday.  At the moment he spends every spare moment playing his guitar so it was obvious what the choice of image would be!  He's also very patriotic so I decided to use Portobello Road papers and a red, white & blue theme.

Woodware Boy Zone stamp, coloured with Promarkers.  Papermania Portobello Road papers, Woodware chipboard numbers coloured with Promarkers & Anita's 3D gloss used to finish.