Ebony and Ivory...

Well black and white anyway! The challenge on http://pinkleart.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Sunday%20Stampers is to use black and white to create a card, ATC or any other creative work. I always love working in black and white and took this chance to use one of a set of two silhouette stamps I bought recently from a seller on ebay. Love ebay and especially love it when you get a great surprise extra with your purchase. I had actually bought 3 sets of clear stamps from this lady but she must have decided to have a really good clear out as she put two lady's head silhouette clear stamps in as an extra. Bliss - I love both of them.

I've no idea what company they are made by but they are both really useful stamps to have. The one I used for this card lends itself to adding feathers to the hat and after adding the feather I couldn't help myself I just had to add a bit of bling too.

The background paper is from Kanban. I got the idea for the layout when I was trying to decide what to do with the stamped image. I was playing around and noticed the diagonal pattern on the back of a square envelope that happened to be on my craft table. I liked the way the paper made a cross on the back and decided to have a go at recreating the shape with patterned papers on my card. I used papers with the same design but a positive and negative image and am quite pleased with how it turned out.

This card is also suitable for the challenge at http://themethursday.wordpress.com/ which is on a theme of hats this week. Watch this space because more hats are on their way.

Penny Black - my first stamp

The challenge on the new Penny Black challenge site at http://pennybfriendssaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/ is to make a card using your very first Penny Black stamp.

I bought my first one earlier this year - two bunnies in plant pots. I started out to make this card for the birth of twins but ended up making it as a very early Easter card for next year. Organised or what??

The bunnies are coloured using Lyra water colour crayons and some water colour pencils. The flowers are die cuts and the paper is by DCWV. The small message stamp is a Stampendous one and was in one of my lovely 'thank you' bags after buying goodies from Bargain Garden.

Sunflowers

This is my card for the first challenge on Joanna Sheen's craft forum. The theme for this new challenge was 'Sunshine and flowers' which led me to making a card with sunflowers on. The sunflowers are from a sheet of decoupage that I have had in a folder for far too long (there's about another 50 sheets of different flowers in there too but reckon I'll cope with those another day).

When I was looking through my stash of card stock to find the right colours to match the flower the yellow and green corrugated ones seemed to jump out at me. I am really please they did as I love the texture they bring to the card.

I finished the card off with a fine green satin ribbon edged with gold tied around the yellow card and holding the tagged greeting in place.

I'm back...

I have been so poorly over the last week or so that I haven't done any card making or craft of any kind - not a happy situation! However, I am beginning to feel tons better and have at last got some of my craft stuff out and got into action.

This card is a triple whammy (well I have missed a lot of challenges and need to catch up fast). The challenge at http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/ is to use three types of embellishment on your card. I loved that idea and on my card I have diamond gems (10 ooooooh good job I bought some bargain ones recently - thank you Chris at Bargain Garden), eyelets and last but not least ribbon.

The challenge at http://stampchallenges.blogspot.com/ is 'monochromatic' - my favourite. I love black and white. I just can't resist black and white paper designs and even though I have millions I still buy more.

The third challenge is at http://ooh-la-la-creationschallenges.blogspot.com/ and is the one dear to my heart as it is the one I organise with my dear friend Wendi and this week we asked people to think 'Romance'

The images used on the card are silhouettes from a CD by Ooh-la-la-Creations and the sentiment is from a set of clear stamps by Heidi Grace.

I'm especially pleased with this card as I think it will make a great anniversary card for my Auntie and Uncle who are celebrating their Diamond Wedding anniversary next week - well it has got 10 of my new diamond gem stones on!