Such Quirky Fun!

Here is my second make for the Quirky Crafts reminder, and for this card I combined  Bugaboo images: Summertime Peekers  - swim, Beach Baby 2 and Beach Monkey Swim to create a scene that reminds me of watching children swimming in the sea this summer. I used some pale blue beach hut printed vellum behind the die cut scene, fixed with fish brads.

I also used glass ball gell medium for the sea foaming round the monkey, hard rock candy (got away with it on this image) on the sunglasses, and Cosmic Shimmer on the droplets round the girl, The scene is coloured with Promarkers and die cut with Spellbinders long rectangles and long scalloped rectangles.

These cuties have swum into the following challenges:

Little Miss Muffet - #94 anything goes with the right images (Wed 24?)

Sweet Pea stampers - All Creatures great and small (Thurs)

Creative Fingers - #49 anything goes (Sat)

Crafts Galore - make a card (Sept)

New home, might be a tad small.

 I noticed a moving van outside a week or so ago, and deduced we must have new neighbours - therefore I must make them a card! I have only just got round to this, and I spotted a challenge at Artful Times called Use a House Shape. I have the same TH die that Guest Designer Sam used, and I have Artful Dwellings, but what could I do for a new neighbours card?
Well the front is pretty CAS and was stamped with some Tanda rubber stamps by Sue Law, which are coloured with Promarkers. I managed to find some "road" ribbon too, and masked off the first half of the sentiment (ok I messed up the first time and ruined my panel, if you mask the stamp then ink it you really should check there isn't ink on the tape!), added some dots, mounted the panel on red card then a green 7"x5" card blank made from card in my stash - the only problem here was that this die was NBUS, so totally unknown as far as results went, the instructions said a card blank minimum 5"x5.5" and I think the 5.5" is needed for the height not the width of the house as a tiny part of the tabs on the roof were showing when closed!

 The die cut house, using a Sizzix Bigz XL die, was assembled and inserted according with the instructions, and the rest of the sentiment - masked off again, and dots added was die cut and added inside.

 Front of the little house popped up. Out of shot I had to weigh one side of the card down to keep it like this.

 A different angle, here you can see the little welcome mat I made, and more could have been added like flowers up the side of the house, a garden - I felt like I had gone back to my childhood! See the number 3 on the door? That was die cut and embossed with an embosslit alphabet die by Sizzix.

 Does doodling the roof tiles on count as tangling? I added a little brick detail with a Prismacolor pencil.

View from the back. I was quite pleased with the end result, the next one will be even better I feel.

I hope that a never before used die counts as new for Die Cut Diva's, I also used my new die cutter - first time trying a Bigz die on it, and the die cutter is the Cheery Lyn Crossover.

This card is popping into the following challenges (max 5):

Papertake weekly - anything goes (Tues)

Through the Craft Room Door - anything goes (Sept 8th)

Artful Times - use a house shape (Fri 12th Sept)

Technique Twist - outside your comfort zone - well it has taken me years to pluck up the courage to make a pop up card! (13th Sept)

Die Cut Diva's - use something new. (Sept)

Peeking Posies take 3

How about a pink background and blue and green flowers? I like this and I found some old papers that compliment the colours perfectly, matted the images on dark green - not cut out this time, and found some matching polka dot ribbon, and stamped the sentiment in dark green. Images coloured with Promakers.

I have entered the following challenges:

Coffee, Chocolate and Cards - Anything goes closes Friday 27th Sept

Peeking posies take 2

Same card darker colours, and the background is another piece of card I was trying out ghost stamping with, which didn't work because I need water based inks! So Hero Arts Peeking Posies set again coloured with Promarkers, same Hero Arts sentiment as before and the same ribbon from Crafty Ribbons.

New home card

I bought this stamp called Sillyscape by Hero Arts because I really like it, and I thought it would make a great new home card. I coloured it with Promarkers and Trias (it is quite fiddly to colour and the fine nibs were best), cut it out with Nestabilities labels 8 which is my current favourite set, and the biggest size labels dies that I have. Greeting I think is by Dimensions Forth, I need to check, and are part of a clear set. Striped card and leather look brown card stock used. (I should have changed the background, too late now).

This one is in the shop now.

Feel better soon card

I am not totally happy with this card, I made it as a result of a colour combo challenge which I am far too late to enter but I wanted to try the combo, as it pushes me outside my comfort colour zone.
I was trying to get it posted and rushed it to a certain extent, in that it took me a week to finish but I could have spent more thinking about it!

Sometimes there are good cards, sometimes not so good, and I am showing the not so good today.

I die cut the peony Nestabilities dies in red and teal, and felt they needed a contract panel behind to seperate them from the teal card, but I could have put the flower on a different colour card blank, or a large panel that covers most of the front with a better effect perhaps.

I did start off with a long thin panel behind the flower and the stem, but that wasn't quite right, so tried several different shapes both die cut and like this one which was just a rectangle with the corners clipped with a MS border punch called cornice that I have just bought after seeing it used like this!

I do like what I managed to do with the flower, which was to use the handle of my eyelet setter pushed into the middle to round the petal layers a bit, so it is not so flat.

The flower centre is a teal button with teal cord, the greeting is Dymo tape written, and the small flowers are Papermania with teal Papermania gems.

Paula, if you see this before it arrives I hope you like it. Its the thought that counts - right?

I just noticed that the ABC challenge blog has a challenge this week of B is for Buttons, so I have entered this card, has a button so I can! The link to the challenge blog is in my side bar.

New cards

Here are the cards I made, nothing special, just using up the freebies from the magazine with a bit of stamping, peel offs, papers, or chipboard letters!

The fabric hat is from Card Market who had some card making stuff once but I haven't seen it since!

I got a box in the post today which looked promising but was only the dog shampoo!

I had a package of papers and bits I ordered from the Crafty Carrot Sale and there was a free reel of DST in it. Seems to be the month for freebies!

Made some cards!

Don't faint, I actually managed to make a few cards and I mended my work trousers that have sat here for ages waiting for a few stitches!

I haven't quite finished the cards and they are just using the handbag and shoe chipboard shapes that came free with a magazine and more circles!

Now they are used I am looking at blooms and hats!

I was on my own today, but I had a mini crisis when the electricity went off but not the lights or cooker! It took a while to realise that then a while later and a few phone calls to work out the RCD switch needed switching, all came back on but when I plugged in my steam cleaner it went again!

Apart from that I haven't done much, filled up the bird feeders, bit of housework, cooked myself some organic chicken with veg and rice pasta, and now it is time for bed!

Goodnight all!

Oh just to say I was going to leave some comments on Max's blog and another but blogger kept timing out! Will do it when I can.

Another Mother's day card

I haven't printed an insert for this card yet, but here is another Mother's day card using the Papercrafts Inspirations free chipboard embellishements, with a Papermania bloom and brad, stamped sentiment using a Stampendous Perfectly Clear set of words, and the polka dot paper is actually pink card that I made holey with my eyelet setter! I couldn't find any pink and black paper or ribbon so I made up my own solution!

The central circle has pink eyelets all the way round and a heart gem too. The circles were in a pack of some free stash I got.

If I don't make any more that will do for the two Mums! Any more will be a bonus and can be sold to raise some charity money.

There is Do Crafts demo in town tomorrow that I hope to get to, I have missed the last two demos - one Do Crafts and another due to other commitments or not feeling well. I normally buy the goodie bag, I got one after the event last time but it was a smaller bag than normal but cheaper. This time I don't think they are doing the goodie bag, there is a different offer which I might buy!