More Favourite Flowers...

Today sees the last two of my sample cards for the Favourite Flowers stamps by Joanna Sheen.

The bluebell card has a punched frame border, which I made using one of those fantastic Papermania punches I bought a couple of weeks back. If you missed my tutorial on how to make the frame you can find it HERE. I know quite a lot of my friends have been buying these punches and giving it a go. I'm hoping to see some amazing cards around soon.

I used Lyra Aqua crayons to colour both the bluebells and the wild roses. I find these crayons wonderful for getting the exact colour you want to mix, especially when you're trying to make a really delicate shade like the one I used on the roses.


The quote is a clear stamp I bought recently from Clarity Stamps - being a clear stamp it was easy to get the quote in just the right position. To stamp the reversed image of the rose in the correct place I used a stamp positioner.

I matted and layered the finished images onto a soft silver embossed card and then vellum which helped to soften the look of the card.

Thank you everyone for looking at my samples this week and for your lovely comments. Some of them have just blown me away they have been so good. Have a great weekend and see you Monday for Pink Elephant day.

Floral Fantasy...

Guess what - yep another card using one of the flowers in the new stamp range, Favourite Flowers, by Joanna Sheen. This particular stamp gave me quite a headache at first, because for a little while I couldn't get my head round how to show it off well and do justice to the fabulous art work.

Then looking though my papers for inspiration I found a sheet of dreamy blue scrapbook paper with the word Daisy at the top and very subtle flower words all over - how lucky is that? I didn't even buy the paper if I remember rightly it was free with one of my Artymiss orders some time back and like a lot of things it just seemed too good to use - till now!

I stamped the daisies directly on to the patterned paper and then used my white inktensity pen to really make the flowers pop. I think I used Sakura Stardust green for the leaves and stems. I matte and layered the image on to white and then vellum before finally putting it on to a navy border. Looking at the card now I would quite like to have a navy tag too but ah well not to worry.

Luckily the challenge at Tanda Stamps this week is floral fantasy so it's an ideal challenge to link up with this card. Thank you for looking everyone and for leaving such fantastic comments - you are so kind.

Birthday flowers...

I'm really busy at the moment doing more samples for Joanna Sheen, which is fantastic, but means that it's hard to fit in making cards for the weekly challenges that I so love to enter. I'm hoping that nobody will mind me entering the cards I made for last Sunday's show if they fit the challenge theme.

This is my favourite of all the Joanna Sheen Wild Flower samples I made. I love daffodils and the artist captured them so well for this stamp. The card is 8" x 8" and the inner stamped section has a pocket behind it for the gold mirri card tag.

I stamped the tag with the Irish Blessing verse which is a stamp by Clarity Stamps. Aren't those words just beautiful? The little flourish at the bottom of the verse is also a stamp, but at the moment I can't remember which clear set it was from.

As my card is a birthday card I'm entering for the challenge at Stamp Something where this week they are thinking about birthdays. Love their challenges and I haven't had chance to enter for a while. Mental note to self - 'I must get more organised!'

Summer Days...

This was another of my card samples for Joanna Sheen's new range of stamps 'Favourite Flowers', but I think it's also perfect for the challenge at Cute Card Thursday where the theme is Summer days. Poppies so remind me of summer hedgerows and bright red fields ablaze with this so strongly coloured, but delicate wild flower.

I've always thought it a great idea to combine a card and a small gift in the one envelope so for this card I decided to create my own seed packet using the gorgeous poppy stamp from the range.

To create my seed packet I measured the stamp and then using Serif Home Office I designed and printed the basic seed packet leaving a space in the middle which allowed me to stamp the poppy. I used Lyras to colour the image.

Using acetate allowed the back of the seed packet to be seen too so I typed and printed planting instructions on a piece of white card which was then attached to the back of the packet. There is a real packet of poppy seeds inside my decorated packet and this was the source of my planting details. I attached the packet of seeds to the card using ribbon which means that the recipient can easily remove the packet without tearing anything.

A couple of years ago I did some Christmas cards in the same way as this card, but they were for children and contained 'Snowman' seeds. They were very popular with my friend' s children and everyone was crossing their fingers for a fall of snow so that they could plant their snowman seeds. I've just checked my blog and you can see one of those cards here if you would like to.

The inside of the card was finished off with a sentiment and a small image of a watering can from the Wild Flowers collection.

New Challenge Blog...

Stop groaning everyone - this is different and very special!

This challenge blog is being run by Hannah the daughter of Lori Boyd, from the Pink Elephant Design Team, and as Hannah is only 14 years old her challenge blog is aimed at younger crafters.

Hannah says that Hannah Bug Colour Challenges will be ' A place for young girls and boys to show off their creations. A place to find inspiration and have a whole bunch of FUN!!!! '

Sounds good to me and mums can join in too so if you have younger members in your family this could be the ideal chance to do some crafting together.

Do check this out - Hannah has certainly got bags of talent (must take after her mum) and her first challenge card for the theme yellow, aqua and white is just stunning. She's on the look out for a design team too.

Pink Elephant Day...

It's time for a sketch challenge at the Pink Elephant - my favourite as Robin's sketches are just wonderful to follow. Our sponsor this week is The Little Paper Shop and the DT were lucky to be given a couple of digi stamps to play with. I chose Katie on a swing and Little Friends - so cute. If you haven't visited The Little Paper Shop you should they have some really cool stamps and digi images.

I'm disappointed with my girl on the swing birthday card as silly me printed the image smaller than I intended. Don't you just love the way you can print digi images in any size you want? My original plan was to adorn the swing ropes with paper flowers and put one in her hair, but alas the image was too small. Ah well not to worry this version has diamonds and the flowers can make an appearance another day.

My other card is an engagement one - I was thinking along the lines of 'kissing frogs to find a prince'. Maybe I was going too far outside the box I'm not sure. Anyway the computer generated sentiment says 'So glad you found your Prince' and inside the card I've put 'And your Prince found you. Congratulations on your engagement'.

I do hope you'll be able to join us at The Pink Elephant this week. We really have seen an abundance of fantastic talent recently - I know I've gained so much be visiting other peoples blogs and I'm sure the rest of the DT feel the same way. It really is wonderful to have so many people joining us.