A digital Christmas card

Back to working 13hrs - just two days at work, sudden drop from working 28/34 hrs for last 2 months or so.....eek! The first few days at home are fine but then I start to miss going out to work and then that's when my moods start to nosedive and I get really low. Trying to stay positive though - plenty of cards to make between now and next Thursday.....

Here's a 100% digital Christmas card I did this morning.

Using a Gecko Galz image, I resized it and then using the colour pipette, I matched the 'backing paper' to the background of the image, slightly altering its transparency to fit better. The smoky border came from a digi kit I have, again just played around till it looked like the edges were smudged with age. I bevelled the edges of the newly created topper and then made another 'backing paper' of the same colour to put the the topper on, so you can see the beveled edge more clearly. Drew 2 little circles and colour matched the red from the image, agin using the bevel tool - which made then look like shiny gems. Last but not least I found a bow from another kit and matched the red, adding a deep shadow to it. This sounds quite quick too do but it wasn't as I kept changing my mind on colours, placement.....

entering in:  digitally sweet = a digital christmas card

feeling blue

A blue butterfly card today, I made this ages ago and forgot to upload a photo.... image from a Gecko Galz butterfly design sheet. The pack of doilies is still going strong *lol*

N for not square & navy

Oh I missed my butterflies!

I love how this card turned out, wasn't sure at first, but after a few little teaks here and there, I finally got it looking right.

Using a DoCrafts 'Oval' die, I cut two in white card - and stuck them back to back to make a card (the back one has been trimmed at the bottom to make it stand up). Using the next Oval down in size I cut a piece of Prima 'Fairy Belle' and used that has the background paper.
The white flowers were coloured with Indigo Blue promarker, left these a while to dry as I didn't want to smudge the colour on the white card, then stuck large pearls onto the centres.
I used another oval die for the sentiment topper - first I found a stamp to fit it, then used Dovecraft Royal Blue pigment ink.
I glued on the flowers using silicone glue, to allow myself wiggle room to get them in the right postion.
Once everything was glued down, I die cut 4 butterflies in matching white card, using a Tattered Lace mini die and placed them on the flowers.
The final touch was adding all the smaller pearls round the ovals.

Entering this card into: butterfly challenge = N is for not square & navy

remembering summer

Using Hunkdory's Seaside kit (can't remember its proper title at the moment), I made this simple card, just layered up using the design elements and added a few pearls.

Never trusted these type of deckchairs as when I was little I sat on one and it broke.......could only happen to me!

christening

Using a Spellbinder fancy die and a DoCrafts embossing folder, made a pretty in pink Christening card for a friends little girl, quite simple to put together but end result looks lovely.

Winter holiday

One of the many Christmas cards done this week, using a Gecko Girls image.

 

Kaisercraft Christmas papers

green card

do craft doily

The Hobby House gems

embellishment

 

Although snow was forecast in some low areas of the Midlands overnight, we were lucky that by the time I left for work this morning - 5.15am, the little bit of snow we had turned to rain.

 

The challenge was 'feature the Winter Holiday of your choice' - I picked this as I would love to stay in a house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fresh deep snow, plenty of warm fires, food and my family. Bliss.

 

entered in: Gecko Galz Papercrafting Challenge group om FB.

Animal or Pet

In the midst of Christmas card making, so I thought I'd have a change of craft and go digital this evening.

100% digital layout done using CAP2 and 'Poppies' digi kit, not sure if this is a persons handmade kit or from Daisy Trail, apologies if I don't credit.

I have 5 cats, but  this layout is dedicated to 3yr old Poppy, sister of Daisy, both are tuxedo cats (love this description) with Daisy having more white on her coat. Poppy is a miaower and loves lots and lots of fusses, Dasiy is more offhand and will only come for a fuss on her terms, but is open to bribery if she knows her cat milk is in the fridge.

.

entering in: digitally sweet challenges = Animal or Pet

uh-oh...... here comes Daisy....

C for chequered and Cyan

Apologies if this ends up all sized wierd, trying blogging from my phone.... technology eh?

over at the Butterfly blog, the current theme is C for checks and/or the colour cyan.
The colour I used was the closet I could get to Cyan, hopefully it looks ok and to get the checks in, I used the red flowers with a check pattern and matched the sentiment with it.

Hot of the Press 'HomeGrown' paper pack flowers

The Hobby House light blue gems

Tattered Lace mini butterfly die

entering into: Butterfly challenge = C is for checkered and/or Cyan

colour challenge

Over at fripperies and butterflies the colour challenge for August 15th - Sept 14th is based around one of my favourite flowers - the Sunflower.

 

This time I didn't want to do a card, I wanted to do something different. So I ended up doing a journal page for my ring bound notebook I purchased (going cheap) to pop all my crafty stuff in, so I could keep a better track of challenges, cards etc.

 

Fate dealt her hand when I visited a blog I haven't been to for simply yonks - I decided to visit Lilac 'n' Lavender and the latest post featured sunflowers so used the lovely designs as my base and played around with Craft Artist and inks.

 

I used the sunflowers from here and the background for the postcard from here and the sunflower image from here

 

 

                                          

journal page

 

I changed the size of the image to fit my page, leaving a little border so if I  rip the page out when the journal is full I can then use it somewhere else. (this is me thinking ahead for once *lol*) In CAP, I dimmed the colour down so it wasn't as bright then printed it off.

 

 

                                         

page without postcard

 

I like the over all effect but I could have stamped the sentiment higher. When I printed it out, for some reason my printer decided to 'line' some areas, so I got round those areas by extra smudging with the ink. The middle of the sunflowers were especially bad so I ended up sticking my finger in black pigment ink and fingerprinting the middles which, happily, mimicked the texture of actual sunflower hearts. Using bronze and black pigment inks I smudged away to give it a faded/vintage look. (Also smudged the white page so it would match)

For the pocket I folded over a doily (Dovecraft Floral Muse) and glued down the sides, the bit of lace covered the top nicely, then I just had to find a butterfly which went with the color tones.

 

 

                         

postcard

 

I'd found this quote before I visited Lilac n Lavender - fate again! Using CAP I cut out and resized the stem of sunflowers turning them into each corner to make a border, I then cropped the main sunflower image and dimmed that to make a centre piece, over which I wrote the saying. Printed it out and stuck it to the front of one of my many vintage postcards, the back says

 

Dear Madeline

Wishing you many happy returns on your birthday. With love to all.

From

Aunt Louise

 

post mark - Sept 1931 @ 11.30pm Plaistow E13

 

entering in Fripperies and Butterflies on FaceBook.

Taking it Nautical

Card done for the latest gecko galz blog challenge.

Have used this image before but I kinda like it, its very serene and has a 'would love to live there' vibe.

entering in: gecko galz = Taking it Nautical




would write more but am really really tired, will update later xx

V is for Vase and/or Vanilla

After yesterdays ongoing card saga, I decided to do a quicker one today, I had already been through my pile of Decoupage sheets (a friend of a friend gave me a carrier bag full, piled up its about 2 inches thick!) and found some likely images to match the challenge over at the Butterfly blog. (Although I didn't actually use it for decoupage)

Once I picked the one I wanted, I realised that a pack of A5 card with envelopes, given to me as part of  The 7 days of Summer Swap over on Cardexchange) would match the colour scheme, plus it was textured card which went well with the mosaic pattern on the image.

All I had too do was die cut some butterflies using Tattered Lace Mini Butterflies set, grab some gems and Spellbinders Happy Birthday sentiment and I had a card.

Very quick and simple card to do, doing this card as prompted me do another similar card, this time in blue -  but not using the main image but one of the decoupage levels. Watch this space *lol*

entering in: Butterfly challenge = V is for Vase and/or vanilla

Anything Goes

This card took me hours!!!! And all because I wasn't happy with the right hand side....so I decided to add a flower...... dropped the bead box and lost the last matching flower for the middle....made a sentiment and stuck that on flower, looked naff so pulled it off......then chopped it up and stuck that on, looked naffer.......did another flower & sentiment, ditto.....did another flower......back in the bead box - found another white flower so then pulled middle off of one of the flowers, stuck the white on that and then stuck the original onto the new flower.  Phew!

And for the love of all things Craft, why is it when you want a gem to stick exactly where you put it, it keeps dropping off but when you accidently drop it on your work in the completely worse place possible it sticks like you've used the strongest superglue EVER???

 

patterned velum by Laurence Llewelyn Bowen

white flowers coloured by Almond & Pastel Blue promarkerx

Dovecraft 'Floral Muse' doily

image from Lunagirl 'Butterfly Cards'

gems, flowery middles, lace and pins from stash

 

Entered in: lunagirl = Anyhting goes for August

 

New beginnings

Over on my facebook page, I occasionally select a random photo of a crafty make, anyhow I popped one up of a card I did for a friend who was leaving her job, but wasn't sure what she wanted to do, so I choose 'new beginnings' as my sentiment, a couple of years ago.

Off of the photo, I was asked to do another, luckily I still had bits of the same paper to hand, so I jigged another one up, only slightly different this time.

 

 

inner

Floral

Floral is this months challenge over at Digitally Sweet (link at the bottom of the page) but I was struggling with my chosen project....decided to scroll through all my files again to see if I'd missed anything I could use and totally changed my project. As you do *lol*

So now, I have a 100% digital 5x5 envelope front.

Gecko Galz - Coquette Design Kit paper 3

Gecko Galz - Ephemera Fun design sheet

Gecko Galz - In the Garden of Tomorrow image

 

I digitally cut out the bird/flower image from the Ephemera Fun sheet and placed the image in the bottom corner, did the same with the pink rose and copied it once and placed them amongst the flowers, again did the same with the yellow butterfly and copied it again placing round the image till it looked right.

Placed the music sheet as my background, picked a suitable paper and put that over the background, changing the colour by matching it to the cream in the birds wing and then played round with the transparency tool till it was light enough too be able to see the music underneath. Used a punch to punch through both papers, so when it is printed you will have a clear space for the address.

 

 

 

entering in: digitally sweet = Floral

 

Colour me this

The Fripperies and Butterflies colour challenge doesn't have many players, in fact the last 2 months has seen me enter on my own, now I don't mind winning *g* but when you're Billy No Mates, its a bit sucky. I declined the prize pack by the way.

My make for July 15th  - Aug 14th challenge on this colour scheme:

 

 

Is a digital postcard done using a Gecko Galz image from Seaside Beauties 2 design sheet, back of a postcard from Google search, sea shell border from Google search.

 

I coloured matched the sun and the sentiment from the colour chart.

 

 

P is for punches & pink

Had a lovely week off last week with Andrew, only been in my new job for 2 weeks so I was so pleased that they honoured the holiday. Lovely just to chill in the sun, and potter around. (not sure if I posted on here what happened with my last job, but that's a post for another day) Today is all about the butterflies!

 

 

The challenge for this fortnight is P is for punch and/or pink - I used this stamp again, its turning into a favourite, this time I paper pierced it with matching ink to paper - Hot Pink and Christmas Green pigment inks from DoCrafts, the paper was also from docrafts capsule collection. Love the effect.

 

To incorporate the Punch bit of the challenge, I used a small butterfly punch I had given me - and punched through the white card, putting a piece of the same pink paper underneath to match the Rose.

 

I've had the backing paper for years and it was one of those I liked but never could never match to a card design. To finish it off, I added 4 little pink gem stones and 8 white pearls in the corners.

 

Again with the off cuts/inking testers from this card, I made a small tag to match, only adding a stamped 'with love' sentiment in the same Hot Pink ink.

 

                                  

 

entering in: butterfly challenge = P is for punch and/pink

Dimension & Denim

3 for the price of 1 today, got my crafty head on as the weather is cooler today, expecting it too rain but the wind blows away the greyish clouds and we get a little bit of sun. Couln't concentrate on anything whilst we were in the heat wave, I picked 6 books from the library and have only read 2, couldn't get into the others, will take them back and pick some more.
Did you know if you check out books from your local library, the author gets some money? Its something like 7 or 8p a go, sounds rather Spartan but at least they know they're being read.

Anyhoo, back to the cards.

 

Made using a sheet of dark blue denim effect paper and a light blue denim effect paper. Create a flower die, (which came free with a magazine - which explains why I nearly took the tip of my index finger off with it when I pulled it from its glue, having to craft and type with a poorly finger stuck up in the air is quite hard. Ouch.) Tattered Lace mini butterflies die, blue gems, Spellbinders sentiment die, white flower and finally a dark blue button.

 

A simple card, but I love how it turned out.

 

I have some A6 blue cards I had given me in a swap over at cardexchange uk, which have been sitting in my envelope box for some time, so I thought I'd use up my bits & bobs and make 2 notelet style cards with them.

 

I read an article in this months Do Crafts Creativity mag about Happy Mail and it looks like something I liked to do, so I figure if I have some to hand, then I can start using them.

 

 

 

entering in: butterfly challenge = D is for dimension and/or denim

Planes, trains & automobiles

Again, struggling with male cards - although I bought HunkDory little book of gentlemans whatever it is, the name escapes me at the moment!

A simple put together of a spare piece of HunkyDory backing card, the topper and then some copper peel offs and twine tied over the top. Hey Presto!

entering in: lunagirl = Planes, trains and automobiles

travel

Most of this digi page was done in the middle of the night, my brain would not switch off and let me sleep, so I got up and decided to start my piece for Digitally Sweet.

Used various elements from various digi kits free on the web, but the image is from Lunagirl 'Travel Posters'.

100% digital using CAP2.

I used the Travel theme with a twst - Time Travel - I guess the sentiment could be a statement or a question, with the steam train powering out of a fiery rip in time.


entering in: digitally sweet = travel

colour palette

The colour palette theme for June was absolutely gorgeous, which made making the card quite hard as I was torn between the colours!

I eventually chose teal, beige and a teeny tiny bit of black.

 

plain colour papers from DoCrafts colour block pack

candi "Mr & Mrs"

die cut sentiment from Tattered Lace 'Mini die set'

teal patterned paper "Soft Nostalgia" Hot off the Press

 

Going to use this as a notelet/writing card/rak.

 

entered in fripperies and butterflies page on Facebook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Y is for Years & Yellow

Using a feebie embossing folder and accompanying stamp, I made this lovely 80th birthday card.

 

The yellow was water coloured but I didn't like the result so ended up going over the pencil with a promarker.

 

entering in: butterfly challenge = Y is for Years / Yellow

 

sun

Now its the atc turn - also done for a Gecko Galz facebook challenge.

Debbi Moore backing paper

stamo from 'The Loving Life' pack

image from Gecko Galz 'The Dance' design sheet.

copper peel offs

Trees

2nd card was for a Gecko Galz challenge over on their facebook page, one of the challenges is too create something which includes trees.
I ended up doing a Christmas scene, which could be a Christmas or birthday card.

backing paper from AndreaJayne 'Jolly Santa' paper pack

Anita's glitterations snowflakes

white organza

blue gems

Do Crafts oval die cuts

white card

image from Gecko Galz 'Winters Garden 1' 

Fathers & Brothers

Been busy crafting today, made 2 cards and an atc for different challenges.

First up is a 4x4 card using an image from 'The Sum of all Crafts' blog.

 

 

 

backing paper & strip 'Old Treasure' paper pack

Encore metallic bronze ink (for the light smudges)

Tattered Lace mini sentiment die

black gems

 

 

entering in: lunagirl = fathers and brothers

O is Oval & Olive

Did you know my local craft store sells every colour ink apart from Olive??? I do now. *lol*
Had to improvise and use a green then a black inkpad on my stamp, did a couple of test stampings before I did the topper just in case it looked horrendous but it looked quite good so went with it.

Whilst at the craft store I came across the Do Craft Oval dies (nesting???) so ended up buying them.... see, I saved money on the ink..... that's my thinking!

White on white on white, the background is another Do Craft die, can't remember what its called, its actually an A6 die so I have to do 2 sheets of paper and put them together to make a 6 x 6 card - hence the ribbon. Crafty cover-up!

The tree branch is a stamp from Chloe's Cards which I received in one of the swaps over at Cardexchange Uk and that's the only Olive colour on the card.
The butterflies and the 'with love' sentiment are Tattered Lace mini dies and are cut from a Papermania paper pack - I'd say it was a off cream colour.

entering in: Butterfly Challenge = Oval and/or Olive

Man O Man

Over at gecko galz, this months challenge is Man O Man.

I made a similar card  the other year - I loved how it turned so whilst flicking through by card box, I decided to do another one for Dad, on Fathers Day. This time I wanted to add a bit of colour so flicked through my paper till I saw this blue one. Just makes it more interesting, I think.
Anything car or steam is perfect for Dad.

 

Old Nostalgia paper kit from The Works

vintage buttons

one shiny gem (found on a piece of rubbish)

one gem

image from Gecko Galz 'Industrial Age'

stick on wheels

 

entering in: gecko galz = man o man

 

 

 

Photo inspiration

Well, first card done after our camping holiday in Devon..... a Christmas card *lol*

this was the photo, I went the easy way and choose cups for my card as I knew I had still got a bit of Nitwits 'cookin cookies' paper pack, free with a magazine. Unfortunately I only had a small cup of hot choc left which was on the ad for the pack so I had to use that. Hence a cute 4 x 4 card for this challenge.

Everything was Nitwit 'cookin cookies' and the red button was from a small pack of Do Crafts Christmas buttons - extra shiny red!

 

entering in:  merry monday christmas challenge = photo inspiration

Gold & Green

Over at Gecko Galz Papercrafting Facebook page, gold & green is one of the five challenges. I haven't played digitally around for ages. I love losing an hour or two playing with masks, different materials, shadows etc and trying to find the right bits and bobs from all the digi kits and where they look the best.

And of course, just had to add some butterflies.

 

image from Gecko Galz- Gypsy Magic

elements from various digi kits, mostly free from Serif

sentiment in Juice font

 

entered in: Gecko Galz Papercrafting Facebook group

Garden of Dreams

The monthly challenge over at gecko galz is Garden of Dreams, it was hard to pick an image as there were so many lovely images to choose from.

In the end, I picked this Sunflower one, as sunflowers would be in my garden of dreams, I tried growing them but they don't seem to like me, plus bee's -  we should all have some bee friendly flowers in our gardens. Sarah Raven website is a good place to go and buy/get ideas & tips/recipes. Plus the words 'beautiful colours' - sums up gardens in general.

 

Do Crafts luxury die cut panels

scraps of paper in stash

Spellbinders Sentiment (1) die

lace

Gecko Galz image Provance Garden 2

 

entered in: Gecko Galz = may challenge

 

R for Recycled & Ruby Red

Loved doing this card, although it was plan B as I couldn't find the gift bag which was for plan A, one day it will turn up so that plan is on hold till then!

The only thing which wasn't a reused item was the actual card blank.

I used a Birthday card I received this year as my backing card, I loved the colour and texture of it, so I thought I would matt a piece of card on top to hide the design and leave a white border round but when I was resizing it too fit my card blank, I chopped it all off the bottom instead of a bit off the top and the bottom, so that the gold cake stand was now in the middle of the plain border so turned the card round and used that, not the same tone of colour but the texture was still there.

The lovely brown butterfly wrapping paper came from a 7 days of Easter swap I took part in. Carefully unwrapped the parcel as I knew the paper would come in useful one day.

 

 

Spellbinders die - Sentiment One

 

I cut a few of the paper butterflies out,glued them to a thin card first so they were a little bit firmer for shaping. And then placed them over the original butterflies on the ripped paper.
Then put the sentiment on, tried putting gems on but it didn't look it right. Plain and simple it is.

entering in: butterfly challenge = R is for recycle and/or red

woodgrain, kraft & white

Phew, actually remembered to blog this before the challenge finished!!

I had so much fun making this card. Although I think it looks like a Nordic version of Hilda Ogden's living room wall. (if you have no idea who I'm going on about, it means that I'm older than I think I am!)

This isn't my style of card at all, but I love the colours. Even Andrew liked it, though he did say 'Is the antler supposed to come off the card like that?'. Yes, dear, it is supposed to be like that!! *lol*

 

reindeer die freebie magazine

misc sentiment

Old Treasures paper pack  from The Works

white card

kraft paper

 

entering in: merry monday = woodgrain, kraft & white

Lovely little Spring card today, Daffodils are one of my favourite flowers, their bright yellow brightens up even our garden.


Love this sweet image of the little Trumpet boy heralding Spring.

image from Gecko Galz

create n craft yellow gingham (Yee Haa!!!)

everything else from stash.

digital birthday cards

Had a lovely coffee date with some ladies I don't get to see very often, one of which I didn't know was coming and it was her birthday this week, so I thought I'd use this challenge theme and do a 100% digital card and pop it on her facebook.

Now, it not be everyone's cup of tea but she loved it.

Gecko Galz 'day of the dead' sheet 1

free Serif kit papers & flourishes

100% digital

 

I digitally decoupaged the skull and also the rose on the left, adding shadow but its still hard to see as the picture is quite dark
Also matched the backing colour to the darkest one on the image to blend it in more.
 

entering in: digitally sweet = digital birthday cards

T is for teal and/or texture

Quick post - Teal was a very hard colour for me, this was the best match!

Plenty of texture on this - frayed ribbon, glitter, gems, different paper flowers, resin flower and material flowers plus the doily.

Had to work for this card!!

entering in: butterfly challenge = T for teal / texture

Fantasy

Something simple for this months challenge over at Digitally Sweet.

I wanted to use fairies and mushrooms/toadstools - I found the perfect fungi image from "spring has sprung" by Ephemeras Vintage Garden   and decided to use my favourite fae folk from  Fripperies and Butterflies.

With retrospect, that was the simple bit - I spent a very long time digitally cutting out the toadstools from their background, in the end it was millimetre by millimetre! All I then had to do was place the fae folk fluttering round, adding shadows here and there - the overall image reminded me of pictures from an old Lithographic book on Natural History or something of that ilk.

This image is 100% digital.

 

entering in: Digitally Sweet = Fantasy

happy card

Whilst mooching YouTube, I watched a lovely stamped card tutorial by Dawn's Stamping Thoughts and decided to have a go.

Changed the colour of the card to my favourite, only because I had the cardstock on my desk and thought I'd go with that.

 

 

purple card

white card

Smile stamp by 'From the Heart Sentiment Collection'

Fleur de Lys stamp

Stazon Vibrant Violet ink

The Hobby House lilac gems

 

 

purple, white and silver

A Christmas card done following the colour theme of purple and white - totally forgotten about the silver bit, so this isn't going to be entered into Merry Mondays Xmas challenge but its taken on another meaning with the sad news of the passing of Prince, - 'when doves cry' and 'purple rain'.
I have to say, as a fickle teenager I never really 'got' him - yes his music was good but that was all - no matter though, he still was a force of nature and there was nobody like him before and I don't think anyone will be in the future.

Cowgrls, cowboys & horses

Another great challenge over at Lunagirl this month, although it did take me a long while to find an image I wanted to use. I love the colours of this image from Pinterest.

Not much I can say for this card, as I raided my offcuts/bits n bobs/snippets drawer to find colours that went with the image. Oh, vintage buttons! these lovely brown/orange buttons were sat on the top of the pile just waiting to be used.

entering in: lunagirl = april challenge