Scary birthday...

My Grandson is off to a party tomorrow and as he is mad on dinosaurs I made him a special card to take for his playmate, Oliver.  
I used a new CD full of dinosaur images bought from Krafty Hands - at only £4.99 it was quite a bargain. Not that many images on it but the ones on are really good and no nonsense about having over a thousand printables on when in reality there is one image that you can print out in 999 different colours.  That always makes me so cross!
You can't tell from the photo, but the T-Rex is actually decoupage and really stands out in real life.  I'd like to say that the name is on straight and it's the photo making it look skew whiff but I think my vari focals are being slightly detrimental to my card making.  I need new eyes!

Materials...

• Krafty Hands CD 
• Photo paper
• Kraft card scalloped card 
• green and Kraft card for matting and layering

Challenges...

• Seize the Birthday - birthday - masculine
• 4 Crafty Chicks - green
• DL ART - for a boy

Off to do some crafting .  Thanks for visiting and do leave a comment.  It's so good to hear from people and then use the link to visit your blogs too.  Have a great day.

Ann xxx

Aud Sentiments Day...

It's week two at Aud Sentiments and time for my team to show our work for this fortnight's challenge. Heather at My Artistic Adventure  very kindly allowed the team to choose an image sheet from her etsy shop.  What an amazing choice of beautiful vintage images.  I spent ages scrolling through all the lovely designs and eventually decided that 'Vintage chic Victorian Mother's Day flowers Tag Digital Collage sheet'  would be perfect to decorate a folded book project that I had already started.  Here is the folded part of the book - a really easy design as it was my very first attempt at this craft.

The pattern for the folding was a free one on a Facebook group, but you can buy really intricate designs and it is quite a fun technique to try out.
To accompany the book I made a matching card using the remaining images from the sheet I printed out.

Materials used...

• collage sheet by My Artistic Adventure
• Swiss Dots embossing folder
• corner rounding punch and patterned corner punch
• lace and organza ribbon
• maroon, gold and cream cardRb
• die cuts by Spellbinders- flourish and tag

Challenges...

• Aud Sentiments Challenge - Bingo - my line is die cut, lace and embossing.
• Ruby's Rainbow Challenge - anything but a card
• Simon Says Stamp - for a special lady
• Digi Choosday Challenge - Mum's the word

Do pop over to Aud Sentiments and check out the stunning work by my team mates.  They have had some amazing ideas and created some blow your socks off designs.

Ann xxx

Top Tip Tuesday...

Putty rubbers are amazing for doing what they are supposed to do such as getting rid of unwanted pencil marks, but they are also really great for lifting die cuts out of dies and even getting those pesky little bits out that sometimes just won't fall out.  

Using the putty rubber press it firmly onto the bits you are wanting to release from the die and pull away. The bits will come out stuck to the putty and can fairly easily be pulled off to throw away.  If you are like me and sometimes leave the bits in the die until there are quite a few layers that are well and truly wedged in like the ones in the photo above you may need to press the putty rubber on more than once to really clear the die.

Top Tip number two it's much easier to get the bits out if you clean the die after each cut!

Hope this helps someone.  I know I've found the putty rubber brilliant both for removing the tiny bits and also releasing the die cut itself when you have the kind of dies that don't have release holes.  Just by pressing the putty rubber on the die cut you can release a part of it and then ease the rest out of the die.  
Perhaps Blutack will work in the same way.  I've not tried it and haven't got any in the house.  Do let me know if you have some to try out and find it works.
Have a fun day.
Ann xxx

Blossoms and bows...

I never ever fall out with my Penny Black stamps whether it be the cute hedgies, meece or the really gorgeous vintage boy and girl stamps.  They are all scrummy.  Today's card includes a little hedgie with a bunch of flowers - so cute.  

Materials...

• Hedgie stamp from clear set by Penny Black
• die cut circle, scalloped circle and tag
• pink cut out background created using Silhouette machine and file from Silhouette store
• organza ribbon and peel off sentiment

Challenges...

• Penny Black and More - blossoms and bows
• The ABC Challenge - E for exceptionally cute
• One Stitch at a Time - anything goes for birthdays
• Quirky Crafts Challenges - Pretty in Pink
• Sentimental Sundays - Anything goes with a sentiment

Snowing here - think it may be a good day to get some more crafting done.  Have a good day whatever you are up to.

Ann xxx