D is for....

Over at Butterfly Spot challenge Blog, the newest challenge is 'D is for Decoupage' which I haven't done in a very long time so I was keen to do decoupaged daffodils - one of my favourite flowers, but not being able to find my sheets I had to rethink what I was going to do so I have went with option 1) 3 of the chosen colours - Daffodil, Dusky Pink and Dairy Cream along with Die cut and Butterflies.

Tomorrow I am off to a 'Slow Stitch' 2 hour class so I am looking forward to that - I started a new project of embroidering a stamped butterfly on hessian which I want to turn into a mixed media piece.

 Amanda xx

B is for

Over at the Butterfly Challenge blog, the letter is B and a shaped card. 

I choose - buff green, baby pink and Bluebell, with a Birthday greeting and of course, the most important thing - butterflies!!

The paper stock was from a Card Making Magic Kit, The Secret Garden by Christina Griffiths, which was free with a magazine. I think the butterflies came from a previous prize by Mrs A. over at the Butterfly Blog and finally the White Pearls by Phil Martin.

Amanda xx

J @ Butterfly Challenge

A new challenge over at the Butterfly Challenge Blog this week, this time the letter J.
I chose to do the card shape again along with butterflies. From the photos the card looks blue and pink but its actually a lilac and pink card, such pretty papers.

with the band on

papers & stamp from Christina Griffiths

 Card Making Magic All in One Collection 

issue 2

Tattered Lace mini butterflies dies

oblong with a pretty border die

entering in: Butterfly Challenge - J for Joy fold

                              

A 6x6 card blank stamped with a flower design in Stazon Vibrant Red, then using a Spellbinders die topper first in black then white, with love in black in, four little red gems to finish.

Amanda xx

Retro Summer challenge for June

A new month means a new Customer Challenge at the Gecko Galz and the theme for the month of June is 'RETRO SUMMER'.

This month is all about 'Retro Summers' so get those swimsuits and flip flops out, settle back under your pink sun umbrella and have a Pina Colada and play along - join the challenge with the chance to win $25 at the Gecko Galz Shop

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This started out as a 5 x 7 card, I cut the card away around the topper - still stands/opens up properly which was just a stroke of luck *lol*

The image came from 'Summer Sweeties' sheet 2, edged round it using a promarker then stuck into a the blue card (which I thought looked a bit like aged denim), then mounted that on a piece of red chequered paper which matched her shirt.
The  paper and embellishment came from a pack I've had for years - Hot Off The Press 'Home Grown Paper Set' and never really used, thought it went perfectly with the theme.
Lastly I die cut the sentiment (Tattered Lace mini die set), coloured it with a red promaker and stuck it on.

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I hope you'll join in with our 'Retro Summer Challenge' where the Winner gets a $25 shopping spree to spend at the Gecko Galz Shop. (The only rule is that you must use at least one Gecko Galz product... this can be one of the freebies or, of course, you can buy at the Etsy shop)

If you sign up for the Gecko Galz monthly newsletter, you'll be kept up to date with new releases, $1 Wednesday deals and be able to claim a free digital collage sheet.

If you pop over to the Gecko Galz Blog, you will see all the designs by the fabulous Design Team - and maybe grab a freebie or two.

If you haven't a blog/and or on Facebook, head over to the Gecko Galz Papercrafting Group where there are more monthly challenges, with the chance to win a digital collage sheet.

Amanda xx 

Something beginning with A

Had a crafty day Friday, my mojo has gone walk about but with bribes of chocolate and scrumptious coffee, think I may just have convinced it to stay awhile.

One of the cards it this one, it turned out to better than I expected. 

The blue squares were a 'find' in my snippet drawers whilst looking for the right colour blue card. See, hoarding random bits of off cuts does pay in the end! 

Used Gecko Galz 'Nautical' design sheet 1 for the square toppers, used full size images and resized to want I wanted.
The backing paper is from GG 'Seaside Splendour' Kit with the transparency taken down so it fades away.

Luckily I had just enough to die cut the sentiment out.

entering in Gecko Galz Papercrafting Challenge Group over on Facebook.

P is for paper piercing and/or fern

I was a little stumped by the paper piercing element of this challenge but then I remembered that I still had a Parchment Lace magazine which I bought in a fit of enthusiasm whilst watching Create & Craft..... then needless to say, put on my to do pile and promptly forgot about for about a year.

 

pale green backing paper & topper from magazine

Hobbycraft green pearls & white hearts

White large and smallpearls

Tattered Lace mini butterfly die

 Docrafts oval die

 entering: Butterfly Challenge = P is for paper piercing

U is for underneath & umber

Have now got a stinking cold, and now sound like I should be doing a Tunes advert, and sneeze! Wowza! Think I may have lost my tonsils a few times.

Did this rather elegant, if I may say so myself, best wishes card for the latest challenge at Mrs A's this afternoon.

Anna Griffin punch

Spellbinders sentiment die

I used cream card embossed with swirls as my cardstock and a left over bit became part of the layered band.
I used the closet brown I could find to umber, it looks more greyer in the photo but it is actually brown. The card actually looks like box of scrummy chocolate colours.

As the main challenge was 'underneath' and the secondary 'use the colour umber' I decided to take both very literal and use the colour underneath, peering through the punched butterflies. There are actually 4 butterlies, but as I was assembling the card I smudged glue in the middle so decided to cover the mess with a matching sentiment topper. (Mess = the teeniest tiniest smudge only I could see), leaving just two butterflies showing. For a touch of elegance I added the double rows of white pearls.

Entering in:  Butterfly challenge = U is for underneath/umber


And now am off to bed to sniff, cough and sneeze my way through the night. I pity Andrew.

Reindeer

I spent all one afternoon, tidying my craft desk and shelves trying to find the sleigh die & rubber stamp which matched this reindeer one..... looked everywhere, find some other stuff I forgot I had.... didn't find the die.
Started on this design and went in Christmas stamp box to get a sentiment and found the sleigh die/stamp...well who'd a-thunk it, I actually put something away in the right place.

Andrea Jaynes 'Jolly Santa' paper pack

white card

Creative Dies Elegant Reindeer

DoCrafts shading pigment ink

Spellbinders Heirloom Ornament stamp

The Hobby House olive green & plum gems.

 

entering into: merry monday= reindeer

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.

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

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

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

M is for mint/margins

Ooops, I missed the deadline for Mrs A's challenge by 5 minutes, normally I manage to sneak in about half an hour before but today I lost track of time whilst choosing my $25 worth of Gecko Galz prizes...........

Anyway, April is a busy month for birthdays in this house so I turned the challenge into a birthday card.

green paper from Docrafts

white card

YD butterfly paper ribbon strip

paper flowers

The Hobby House Aqua gems

white pearls

Tattered Lace Kaleidoscope Butterfly XL

pigment ink Christmas Green

 

The only thing I noticed was it needs another white pearl to finish the corner bling off, so before posting I will do that.

butterfly 2

As you know I was the Guest Designer over at the current Butterfly Challenge,  and I made this as my sub, I had a birthday card to do today so I kept with theme of the challenge
Again its another first, as Santa bought me a Raspberry embossing plate for Christmas, so I played with that.

 

Tattered Lace mini dies - butterflies

free embossing strip from a magazine

Create and Craft Happy Birthday stamp

Hobby house 'Taupe' gems

Inkadinkado pigment ink 'Glam gold'

yellow paper from stash

 

entering in: butterfly challenge - X is xanthine

 



white on white

New Year, another new first - a Christmas card in January!!

As I always leave my cards till the very last moment, then give up and buy, I decided I was going to try and enter Merry Monday every week, obviously to get ahead on the Christmas card front but also to meet new crafters and see their lovely work and be inspired.

So, here goes -

my entry for the white on white challenge, now I don't often do this colour because I'm quite an untidy crafter and always end up with a smudge or dirty mark on the card OR one of my cats decides to jump on the craft table and leave a paw print behind.

But this time nothing untoward happened to me, the card or the cat!

 

6x6 card

assorted white papers

snowflake punch

Do crafts Christmas sentiment stamp

Spellbinders Decorative Diamonds (number 2 die)

Inkadinkado pigment ink Glam Gold

White gems

 

 

Now all I need to is put it away safe and remember where I put it. When I go to the shops next, I will look at box folders/storage - I already need a set of little drawers to put all my butterfly stuff in, probably could do with one for my flowers..........

 

entering in: Merry Monday - white on white

two by two

the last of the little Christmas cards today.

Love the top one.

piano

Different style card today, done for a partner swap over on one of my groups, wanted to try and stay as masculine as possible but also jazz it up a bit.

 

Tattered Lace piano die

Do Craft corner frill

ribbon

Do Craft banner

peel offs

copper gems

new challenge

Finally a Christmas post *bah humbug* from me.

Using a new freebie Reindeer die, I made these cute little Christmas cards - the envelopes were part of a 'thank you' card/envelope pack from a magazine, not used the cards as they have a heart shaped die cut out of them, probably find a use for them someday, but the envelopes came in handy!

Entering into a new blog to me,  merry monday christmas challenge blog, ironically close to Christmas, but hoping I will play every week and get ahead for next year.

 

Used Creata Christmas backing papers, layered onto plain white cards, which were off cuts from when I make my 6x6 cards. The reindeer paper/card is snippets from my bits n bob drawer, where I put every leftover little bit of paper/card once I've finished my projects. Its a big drawer!! I never cease to be surprised at what I can find in there.

Embellished with peel offs, sentiments and shiny *g*

 

Perfect little cards for posting to Mr G's relatives this year.

 

entering into: merry monday christmas challenges = use a Reindeer

                      pixies snippets playground