Fancy Corners at CCT

It's Thursday so time for another challenge at Cute Card Thursday! This week we want to see some fancy corners on your creations and our sponsor for this challenge is a gift certificate from Sugar Pea Designs. Stop by the CCT blog to read all about it and see what fancy corners the rest of the DT came up with!

Now I have to admit, this card has been sat in my 'almost done' box for a year! I had coloured the tulips (an old Elusive Images stamp) and fussy cut them out before fixing to the fancy cut base.  Even the corners were done, in fact it was all made but looking plain despite the fancy cut work.  I knew it needed something, a bow or a text .. .. but didn't have any ribbon in lilac or the colours in the tulips.  So, thinking white would fit the bill I decided to use some of the Marianne Design Tulle and tied a triple loop bow then fanned it out. My original idea was to keep the card flat for posting, oh well! The bow was certainly what was needed.

The Marianne Design dies I used for this card: LR0236 for the fancy oval mat and LR0285 in the corners. I've chalked the embossed areas through the die with lilac chalk ink. The papers are old pieces from my stash.

I've been crafting a little more over the past few days, some little ones for St Francis so will hopefully be able to share them with you once I've finished titivating! Those little cards sometimes take just as long as a bigger one!

As usual, I'll pin to my Pinterest album very soon. Thinks for stopping by to take a look (((hugs to all))).

Snowdrops

We are battening down the hatches here in Cornwall, waiting with bated breath for the next BIG BLOW, which is coming in from the south first of all so not a good direction.  Most of the harbours are built to be protected from the prevailing storm winds, that's usually from the south-west, so when the wind blows from a different direction it can be a problem.  The weather man said that this might be the last storm for a while .. .. I do hope so.

Today's card is one that evolved as I went along, sometimes they are the ones that turn out the best!  The image is another of my old Elusive Images flower stamps, snowdrop script, and I've coloured with my Copic pens before die cutting with an oval Nestie and adding a touch of sparkle to the edge.  Behind the image is a fancy MD die cut layer, LR0116, and then the blue scallop Nestie shape embossed with Swiss dots and sparkled along the edge.

And here's the card, another little square to help use up the pile of envies.  Behind the image layers I've embossed a plain white layer with a heart CB folder and matted it in blue, then fiddled about with bits and pieces to create the rest of it.  The scallop edge is another MD die, LR0201.

Stampin' For The Weekend would like to see flowers so I will enter my little snowdrop card with them.  The snowdrops in my garden are surviving the storms, and even the daffs are well up now.  I only grow the short varieties as even in the calmest of winter and spring weather it's always windy this close to the Atlantic Ocean! It will be interesting to see what has survived this winter's atrocious weather .. .. and plant more.  I do need to get in hedges or shrubs that will grow big enough for the birds to shelter in.  Since my neighbour took down the pines, and another neighbour is threatening to cut down his hedge (bad idea as it's protecting his garden from any NW winds) the poor birds struggle to find anywhere to shelter.

Clever Cuts and Cute Card Thursday

It started out bright and sunny here in North Cornwall, but now it's dark and hail stones are once again hitting the windows.  Thankfully I managed to rescue the bird feeders that had blown away and top them up again before the hail storm arrived.  Yesterday the wind was blowing the nijer and sunflowers out as fast as I could top them up. I am hoping the birds will find the seeds on the lawn or I could have an interesting wild flower meadow!  It is a bad time all over the UK now with floods and wind damage and even if the weather does improve it's going to be months before things get back to anything like normal.  The spring flowers are struggling to come through in the garden and I am itching to get out there and tidy up, but with everything so wet and the bitter wind, it's going to have to wait a while yet.

The theme this week on Cute Card Thursday is 'clever cutting', however you'd like to snip away we'd like you to share with us.  Our sponsor for this challenge is Whiff of Joy, stop by the CCT blog to read about the prize and see what the rest of the DT have made.

I've inked up one of my old Elusive Images stamps, the bunch of daffs, coloured with my copic pens then fussy cut it out before fixing with silicone glue (stinky stuff) to the centre panel of my Anja Design die cut piece by Marianne Design.

Here's my card.  It's a 7" x 5" size (not so many envies this size to use up, so don't expect to see many of them) plain white base then a layer of smooth ivory I put through the Swiss dots CB folder.  I've fixed the centre panel with 3d tape and the die cut corners with stinky glue.  I do so admire the detailed die cut cards I see on Pinterest, but somehow don't get the same results .. .. ah well, it's pretty enough and Mum can use it for either Easter or a spring birthday card.

The die cuts I've used from Marianne Design are Anya's Oval LR0236 and corners LR0143.

I'll have to see if I can find any challenges to link up with my card, let me know if you can think of any.

Sympathy Card

I've not been up to crafting much the past few days, but had to make a sympathy card for Mum to send to one of her friends who has just lost her husband after a long illness.  I wanted the card to be subdued as befits the occasion, but also to be uplifting.  I decided the blue with touches of white on a beige base would fit the bill.

The image is a very old stamp by Elusive Images from one of the Oriental sets so possibly a fantasy flower.  Anyway, I've coloured with blue Copics B21, B24, B26 & B39 and a little bright pink RV34 & RV66 in the centre of the flowers for uplift.  For the leaves and stems I went for a blue green with BG72, BG75 & BG78.  I've inked around the edge of the image with Pumice Stone DI and also used it to edge the patterned paper.

Here's the card:

It's a tent fold A6 size and with nothing to stick out so went through the ordinary post.  The base and mats are Sahara Sand by SU! and the paper is from Nitwits Cottage Charm Too collection, and the pretty punched border I've had in my stash for ages - a gift from a friend.  The text on the front and inside is from a mini Sympathy set by Kaiser Kraft.

Plenty of white space so Mum could add a personal message for her friend.

Crafty Cardmakers have a blooming challenge running so I can enter my card with them.


On the home front I am sad to say there is no change and no news .. .. I have tried to phone but my calls are either being ignored or the reception is so bad where DH is that they are not being put through .. .. I wonder?  I have also tried emailing but that got bounced back .. .. still, it was a pleasant enough weekend.  Jason's girlfriend joined us and the two of them worked hard at levelling off and tidying up the garden.  We now have the space for cars off the road, once the surface has settled and we decide what kind of hard landscaping to put down.  Jason is designing and pricing up for a car port, possibly with a green roof .. .. sounds good and will make up to the environment for the hard landscaping we plan instead of the lawn!

I have still to start my DT cards for this week .. .. my mojo has definitely done a bunk so I'm not sure what I'll come up with.  Hopefully this evening I can set too and at least make a start.  The builder came back today to sort out some of the major cracks so I have dust sheets over the furniture in the bedroom until he finishes the job tomorrow .. .. then I will have to paint the wall again - along with the laundry room and Jason's bedroom - such a hassle!

It's not all my mess .. .. and WOYWW

I missed joining in with Julia's what's on your workdesk Wednesday last week, if you want to join in go to Julia's blog here.  I am all at sixes and sevens, trying to do too many things at once and not getting anything finished, consequently the whole house is a bit of a mess!

This is the dining room table that I've taken over, although with all my diecutting equipment still in the conservatory plus the drawers and cupboard with the crafty stuff in there, I'm constantly back and forth.  Here though is where I do my colouring in - with my Copics you can see in 4 empty laundry tab boxes with the colour chart I created.  There's a take-away box with loose glitter, and a cd case with a set of Marianne dies that don't fit in the plastic folders I use for the majority of them.  And then there's my floor lamp with the daylight bulb that let's me see to colour at night.  Some of my recently finished makes are on the sideboard waiting for the insides to be done, nothing fancy, just a text and maybe a little spray of something.  You can see the new set of Marianne clear stamps that I've been playing with, there's a lovely little holly spary corner that I've used quite often and the little deer looks cute too.  The far side of the table is hubby's mess .. .. although as he's away until the weekend I'm encroaching on his half!  Don't look at the state of the room - but if you do you can see the doorway that's been knocked through to give access to the new part of the bungalow.  Eventually we will get around to decorating in this room, but that's a long way off yet.  On the table there's a simple little C6 card I've just finished for hubby to give to one of the farmers that let him shoot on their land - I make him half a dozen each year and they tend to be simple traditional styles.  I've not had any feedback so don't know what happens to them .. .. anyway, here's the card.

The image is an old Elusive Images stamp that I coloured with a mix of Copics and pencils, it's been finished a while and you could see it on my earlier WOYWW posts.  I thought it was about time I did something with it and since I've unpacked the box with old Christmas papers, I found a plain Papermania one that matched the ivy leaves and stamped the little holly spray in the corners, you can still see it at the top.  The image I matted with cream card as my base is cream, then matted the paper with kraft to tie things together.  It looked a bit plain so I used up some snips from other projects that were hanging about on the desk.  The little strip of lace at the bottom, the flourish at the top along with the little flower are all from Marianne dies: flourish and flower from Petra's Square frames LR0234,  lace trim from CR1202.

All being well, I'll get around to catching up with you this evening, usually the internet get's a bit easier after 11pm!

LIM in silver

Today is World Card Making Day - so I managed to grab an hour or two this afternoon to play!  I have made a couple of cards for the Less Is More challenge for a touch of silver - this is the first one, the second I'll schedule for tomorrow so fingers crossed it pops up!

Keeping it simple, I dug out the silver embossing powder and heat gun .. .. although my attempt at creating a snowflake background for the second card with a silver interference powder didn't work as well (dirty Versamark and too hot and sunny in the conservatory so the stamping dried too much before I could get the powder on - but the bits that did work looked good so I might have another go once I've invested in a clean ink pad),  Anyhow, the stamps are all old Elusive Images rubba  from several years back.  I cut out the partridge and fixed him with 3d foam pads so he sits proud.  The text I wanted to bulge a little so I matted it onto silver card then fixed with silver brads.  Silver is so hard to photograph, especially when the sun is shining but I mustn't complain about that!

I'm also going to enter my card in to the ABC Christmas blog challenge for 'T' the twelve days of Christmas - mine is the first day of course!

Less is More Yellow Daisies

Sorry for the miserable photo, my efforts at capturing yellow Brilliance pearlescent ink stamped onto coated cardstock have not been a total success!  The daisy background stamp is an old Elusive Images rubber design and the text was a gift from a crafty friend a few years back.  I've inked the edges with the same ink then fixed the daisy panel straight down onto a C6 card base created from some thick coated card that's no good for stamping/colouring, fixed the text with 3d foam pads then finished off with the sickly yellow organza ribbon and a daisy button from my stash.  It's my creation for this week's Less Is More colour challenge - in case you didn't guess!  I can't say that yellow is my favourite colour, but with lots of white I think this works ok.  And I also found another blog challenge I can enter with my card - new to me so thank you to Angelique for pointing me in their direction, the Mi CAS es su CAS theme is for nature, so hope they like my daisies.

Enjoy your weekend, the sun is shining here in Cornwall so I am trying to keep busy and not dwell on what's happening in my life just at the moment.

Less is More

I've managed to put a little card together for this week's Less Is More sketch challenge, although this is my second attempt.  On the first card the square was too big and not in the proportions shown, so, after looking at some of the other entries I took inspiration and came up with this one.  The square image is part of an old Elusive Images stamp coloured with Copics then I added the little gem flowers.  I used a square Nestie to emboss the centre of the card, inked up the text with a Burgundy Brilliance ink and used the same to edge the image before fixing in place - simples!

I have my new pc up and running but I haven't got used to it and don't have all the programs I had on the old one.  Consequently I've not been able to brighten my picture in the new software I found I had, but it might just be me not knowing what I'm doing - I'll learn and get there in the end.  After the miserable weather over the weekend and yesterday, the builders couldn't start on the roof until today, fingers crossed it stays fine for them, I am starting to feel very impatient and wonder how many more months before I can get my craft stash sorted and within reach.  Until then I've managed to put together a couple more simple cards to share with you in the next few days and now that I've got the internet again I can catch up with some of my favourite blogs and get back to those friends that kindly leave me a comment.

I had to do it .. ..

it was no good - I didn't like the card the way it was (see post below) so after a bit of judicious trimming, matting with the dark brown cardstock, redoing the wiggly line with a brown Sakura Stardust pen and fixing the 3 big brads, this is how it looks now! Please excuse the scissors holding it down on my desk - it kept popping open every time I got the camera any where near taking the picture.

oh and for those that are keeping an eye on the proceedings here, yes the dumper truck has arrived, but no sign of the digger .. .. not sure where that's got to, hope it turns up before Monday morning!

Less is More with Tulip script

I have been feeling blah .. .. my mojo has up and left so rather than struggle with pretty embellies etc, I decided to have a go at the Less is More challenge for a one layer card with script. I remembered I had several old Elusive Images floral stamps that incorporate script as part of the design, so no need for masking, and decided on the Tulip script for this card. I stamped it with brown Momento ink on to a kraft base then got to colouring with my Copics and pencils. I was sat watching the tv and to be honest, just made things up as I went along - just remember to do the Copic colouring first then finish off with the wax/oil based pencils on the top.
I can tell you that the background shades are B0000/000/00/02 and my tulip flowers were Y11/15/17/19/28 plus cream, dark yellow and orange pencils.

Here's the card, and as there is already a stripe in the base I went with it and added white pencil in the same direction to soften things and then when I had finished messing with the colouring I drew a wiggly line around the image to finish things off. I stamped the text with the brown Momento then inked the edges of the card with brown chalk ink to give it all a shabby look - well hopefully that's what you think it looks like. I still ache to mat it onto another colour, especially as it has bent with all the colouring, perhaps a cream or brown - or both, but I will do that on the quiet so I can still enter the LIM challenge with what you see! Sshhh - I re-vamped it here .. ..

I'm not sure when I will be back with a card again .. .. I've nothing finished and a busy time ahead with the builders. I'm keeping an eye out for the mini digger and dumper truck that should be arriving some time today. Whatever you are doing this weekend, enjoy!

Less is More in Chocolate!

The theme on the Less is More blog at the moment is for neutral colours. I should have been working on my DT cards for March this afternoon, but got sidetracked into fiddling around with bits and bobs. I had a couple of scraps of rough kraft card that aren't any good for colouring with Copics and rather than throw them in the bin I got to thinking what I could do. On one piece I've stamped the Elusive Images daisy flower then coloured in with my pencils: ivory, brown ochre, raw umber and burnt umber - then cut out the flower and inked the edges with brown chalk ink. I ran the bigger piece through a bubbles embossing folder in the bug, then inked with Versamagic chalk inks in Sahara Sand and Jumbo Java, tied some twine around it, matted with dark brown card and then matted onto plain caramel card. I've stamped the greeting, added the little butterfly charm on a tag, fixed the daisy with 3d foam pads and finished with the Marianne diecut leaves. I knew it wasn't going to be big enough for a standard card size so instead I created a little thank you gift .. .. ..

So what do you think, is it less enough for the challenge, although the chocolate is certainly a little bit more - it says so on the wrapper!

The ABC challenge blog are up to the letter 'K' and have a kraft challenge so I'll enter my creation with them too.

Bloomin' Daffs

As I wasn't sure that Mum would like the snowdrop card I made yesterday for my Uncle's birthday, I made a couple of others with the Elusive Images daffodil stamps. I've stamped the daffodil script with brown Momento and coloured with Copics, then kept things very simple to create the card. For the yellow tones I used Copics Y11, 13, 15, 17 & Y38 (I haven't got the Y18 yet), I'm sorry I can't remember the greens and forgot to take a note before tidying up! For the background I used B0000 & B000.

Here's the first card, it's a square white base with a piece of digi paper from my stash and a textured green cardstock to mat both the paper and the image. I've inked the edges of the image and the paper with Aloe Vera Versamagic chalk ink and stamped the text with the brown Momento.

For the second card I've stamped the bunch of daffs onto kraft card and coloured with the same Copics, then highlighted with a white pencil. I took the picture last night and it's looking rather dull in the close up - I should have tweaked it!


This is the card that Mum chose, it's a little smaller than C6 to fit some envelopes that I've acquired somewhere along the line. I've done a version of the WOW - a KOK! I used the Argyll embossing folder to create some interesting texture and inked the edges of the layers with dark brown chalk ink, plus added dimension with 3d foam to the central image.

The For Fun challenge is to make a male birthday card - check! and Stampin' for the Weekend want to see some embossing.

Mum is doing much better on the new meds and has been able to get up and about today. Although it's been a lovely sunny day here in Cornwall, it's a little too chilly for her to sit outside just yet, and with a clear sky we might even see some frost tonight!

Less Is More Snowdrops

Mum asked me if I could make a card for my Uncle's birthday next week .. .. ummmm - nothing cute then and not too fussy! I have admired the Less Is More blog and the simple elegant creations showcased there, but rarely join in. However, the current sketch challenge appealed to me and I thought it perfect for a manly card. I've inked up one of my old Elusive Images stamps, snowdrop script, with Rich Cocoa Momento ink and stamped onto kraft card. I've initially coloured with Copics E0000, G40, G82 & YG45 then I've added a white and pale blue pencil.

And here is my card. It's a DL in landscape, difficult to photograph the whole, with a text stamped in the same ink. To draw emphasise to the image I've scored a couple of lines then pricked and inked the edges of the image before fixing flat on the card. The advantage is it should go through normal post, but I'm not sure if Mum will like it so had best get on and make something else!

The Totally Gorjuss blog challenge is for a K.I.S.S. creation so I can enter with them too.

As I expected, Mum had a couple more angina attacks this morning so I rang her doctor. She now has more tablets to take although they might give her a headache until she gets used to them .. .. so more tablets for the headache! I am hoping they will do the trick and as soon as she is stable again I can visit some of my crafty friends for a 'play date'.