Congratulations ma'am!

If you're outside the UK you might not realise that it's the Queen's diamond jubilee this year and in honour of this the team at Meslyn Crafts are having a nice patriotic Red, White and Blue challenge!  Well it's also Father's Day in the UK soon so I decided to combine the two themes:

I've used a background paper from a freebie pack I got with Simply Cards and Papercraft a while ago and outlined it with red card.  The stars were cut out with a punch using the spare bits of red card, and the white stars were outlined with red Promarker.  The image is from Bugaboo stamps and has been coloured with Promarkers.

 

I used Glossy Accents to adhere a metal embellishment from Dawn to Dusk Crafts to the paper and then added a sentiment from the freebie Teddy Bo stamps that I got with a magazine recently - I stamped it on white card then coloured the background with a Flexmarker to make it match up with the clouds.

This is a close up of my colouring and shows that I used Glossy Accents on his boots and belt buckle to make them stand out - and look more super!

I hope that you like the card and that it shows that you can fit in with a patriotic theme without having a queen or flags on your card - maybe you'll be inspired to enter the challenge this month!


I'm entering this card into these challenges:


Pattie's Creations - Father's Day
Delightful Sketches - Red, White and Blue
Little Miss Muffet - Rainbows, Clouds or Wings
MAWTT - Red, White and Blue
My Mum's Craft Shop - Red, White and Blue
Tuesday Throwdown - Masculine Cards

Learning to colour

As much as I love my Promarkers, I know that I'm in no way an expert...yet.  I am now eternally grateful to the lovely Kimberley from Redonkulous Designs who has done this amazing tutorial.  The day after I watched the tutorial I coloured this in and today I made up a card with it.

I started off with a 13.5cm card blank, so cut a 13.2cm square out of purple cardstock and then matted some lovely flowery First Edition Dreamcatcher paper on top.  The corner die is from Quickutz and I added pearls from my stash to this and to some of the ends of the Die-namics Fancy Flourish die.  The flowers are from my stash and the polka dot buttons might be from Papermania but I'm not sure!  

 As always, the image has been coloured with Promarkers and it's from the amazing Mayzyart - a recent digi discovery but one that's now firmly bookmarked.  Something to bear in mind is that each month they change their freebie and when you buy a digi you will get the freebie of the month as well.  This one is called Looks Like Rain.

I'd like to enter this card into some challenges:

MayzyArt - May Flowers

Stamp Scrap & Doodle - Flowers

Card Makin Mamas - May Flowers

Crafty Catz - Girlie Time

Pattie's Creations - Recipe (I've used buttons, flowers and pearls)

Hotshot Craft - Diecuts

MAWTT - Keep it real

I ♥ Promarkers - Anything Goes

My first DT post for Fussy and Fancy!

Hi everyone and apologies that I haven't posted this at the same time as the challenge went live.  Someone is going to have to let me know how to schedule a post!!  I'm back from work now though and have coffee in hand, so lets have a look at what the challenge is at Fussy and Fancy this month:

It's.......New Baby!

For this card I used Kraft cardstock to make the backing square, then added First Edition Sweet Owl papers - that's rare for me, normally I don't want to use these as they're so pretty!  The image is from LOTV and was coloured with my Spring Promarkers.  

The sentiment is from LOTV as well and was stamped onto Kraft with Memento ink then matted on to a scalloped circle which used some leftover papers I had from First Edition Love Letters range.  Finally, the flourish was also made using some pink scraps of Love Letters using my Sizzix die which I bought from Stampin' Up! 

Thanks for popping over to look at my card, please head over to Fussy and Fancy and enter the challenge now, we'd love to see you there!

Happy happy :)

This is the only card I've actually made today, the others I've blogged were previous makes from earlier in the week.  I found the image half-coloured when I was tidying up and decided to just finish it off and see what happened!

You can probably see from the photo that the weather in my corner of Scotland hasn't been great today!  The card has been made using a lot of Kraft (as usual) and some lovely Die-namics dies; details are below.  The image is from Saturated Canary.

 

A close up of her face.  I used a white gel pen to define her eyes and make the colour pop.

I diecut the bunting using Kraft paper and the reverse of the main backing paper which helped it to co-ordinate.  I stamped each letter individually to spell out the word "happy" and put each piece of bunting on a 3D foam dot to make them stand out from the card.  I used Glossy Accents to stick down some jute which I used as the base for the bunting.

Materials Used:

Summer Promarkers

Die-namics pennant die

Die-namics fancy flourish die

Jute string from stash

My Minds Eye paper - Blink of an Eye

I'd like to enter this card into these challenges:

OSAAT - Use your favourites (MME paper, Die-namics dies & Kraft.  Ooh and Promarkers!) Runner up :)

CES - Anything Goes

Great Impressions - Anything Goes

Sweet n Sassy - Feminine

Crafts & Me - Punches & Dies

Birthday dragon!

This is another one I've been asked to make for a birthday:

I coloured the image mainly using my new Summer Promarkers (LOVE!) and added some Stickles to the icing and Glossy Accents to the cherry on top of the cupcake.  I tied some twine around the card and glued on a birthday charm.

 

I decorated the inside of the card in matching paper and added the wording that was requested, which I think is brilliant!  

Materials Used:

First Edition papers - Hideaway

Doodle Dragon image

Bakers twine

Charm from stash

Spellbinders ribbon die

I'd like to enter this into these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp - Sweet Tooth

Top Tip Tuesday - Clean and Simple (my top tip this week is to put a little bit of Glossy Accents under the twine as when it dries it stops the charm sliding)

Crafty Catz - Happy Birthday

Cute Card Thursday - Food or Drink

Cardmadfairy's - Clean and Simple

Craft Your Days Away - All Creatures Great and Small
My Mums Craft Shop - Fairytales

A red headed fairy...

I was recently asked to make a card for a girl who has red hair.  I haven't coloured a lot of strawberry blondes, but think that I've done ok!

The outside of the card is simple, using Kraft cardstock for a lot of the details which offsets the fancy papers I used.  I added a pearl to each of the corner dies in a co-ordinating colour.

 

A close-up of the colouring on the image.  I used gold Stickles to outline the wings.

 

The inside of the card.  I used a design programme I got free with The Complete Guide To Digital Crafting magazine.  I'm still not great with the software!

 

I used a butterfly punch to cut out butterflies using the paper on the front of the card.

Materials used:

First Edition paper - Isabelle

LOTV stamp

Quickutz corner die

Promarkers to colour

Gold stickles 

Nestabilities - circle and scallops

Butterfly punch

I'd like to enter this card into these challenges:

Poodles Parlour - Anything Goes

Crafty Calender Challenge - Things With Wings

CES - Anything Goes (So gutted they're closing)

Glitter Geeks - Wings and Things
Paper Sundaes - Things with Wings 
My Mums Craft Shop - Fairytales

It's not a card!

I don't know about the rest of you crafters, but I always seem to end up with loads of stamped/printed images lying around and yet can't find the right one when I'm looking for it.  Sometimes I will stamp out loads of images, thinking that I'm being organised and readying myself for the next crafting marathon, but in the end they all end up in one big lump and I can't be bothered going through the pile looking for the one image I'm after.  

Last weekend I decided to do something about my lack of organisation by sorting out all my images....and here's a wee look at what I did.

 First I bought a DVD storage box from WH Smith for around a fiver.  I'm not just going to throw all my images in a box though - it's time to ORGANISE!

I measured the width of it and cut out a piece of Kraft cardstock that was 19cm wide and 12cm high.  I then chose a backing paper and cut that out so that it was 18.5cm wide and 11.5cm high and stuck it to the cardstock using double sided tape.

I printed out a label for each of the companies I have images for and stuck this onto Kraft.

Adding some double sided tape to the label and also the back of the cardstock I'm attaching it to in order to give more grip.

Hey presto, a nice little index card for my Mo Manning images :)

I then did the same thing a LOT.

 

The finished article!  They're all now nice and organised.  Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but this is how I spent last Friday night (we really know how to party here at Fresian Towers!) and it was dark by the time I finished!

I'd like to enter this into the Shopping Our Stash challenge to use three or more designer papers.  I know I've used more!  Hopefully this will count for their challenge even though it's not a card/scrapbook.  This was a great stash-shop for me as I had to use papers larger than 6x6 for a change and found LOADS of forgotten ones in my 12x12 drawer ;)

Giveaway!

Just in case you've not seen it, Saturated Canary have an amazing May Day giveaway.  Wander over and check it out HERE :)

All about the boys....

The challenge at Meslyn this month is All About The Boys which should give you all plenty of inspiration - time to try and make some cards for those pesky/tricky men in your life!

Here's my DT card:

The image is from LOTV and has been coloured mainly with pastel Flexmarkers from my magazine subscription gift.  The paper is from my stash (it might be Forever Friends, but I honestly can't remember!!) and it's been matted on to dark blue cardstock.  The sentiment came from a freebie set of chipboards and the corners were cut from cardstock with Die-namics photocorners.

I'd like to enter this card into these challenges:

Catered Crop - The Letter B (baby and blue)

That Craft Place - One for the Boys

Crafty Cardmakers - For The Boys

Lollipop Crafts - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking and don't forget to wander over to the Meslyn blog and enter the challenge ;)

Time for Tea

The challenge at the House Mouse & Friends blog this week is Anything Goes but you cn also add something tea-themed to the card.  I'd forgotten about that bit of the challenge until I was entering my last House Mouse card into the challenge and that reminded me of this image from my collection!  I coloured him with Promarkers and used freebie papers from (I think) SC&P which I matted onto Kraft cardstock.  The sentiment was also a freebie.  I diecut more Kraft using the lacey circle Nesties and then decided to thread some jute through the lacey bits and use this to secure the teapot which I bought from Ebay.

 

Just a wee close-up of the teapot held on with jute.  I'm glad I thought of this actually as the charm isn't flat-backed which makes it a right pain in the bum to secure on to a card!!

I'd like to enter this card into these challenges:

House Mouse and Friends - Anything Goes with Tea

Sunday Sketch and Stamp - Sketch

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Cute and Fluffy