Sir Cliff Richard...

We're all going on a summer holiday.
No more working for a week or two.
Fun and laughter on a summer holiday.
No more worries for me and you.
For a week or two.

We're going where the sun shines brightly.
We're going where the sea is blue.
We've seen it in the movies.
Now let's see if it's true.

Everybody has a summer holiday
Doing things they always wanted to.
So we're going on a summer holiday
To make our dreams come true
For me and you.

We're going where the sun shines brightly.
We're going where the sea is blue.
We've seen it in the movies.
Now let's see if it's true.

Everybody has a summer holiday
Doing things they always wanted to.
So we're going on a summer holiday
To make our dreams come true
For me and you.
Hmmmmmm, hmmmmmmm...
Hmmmmmm, hmmmmmmm...
Hmmmmmm, hmmmmmmm... 

Yes, that song has been going through my head for the last few days as I created my guest design team card for my good friend Ann's challenge over at Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog.  The fun challenge chosen for this fortnight was to use a Sir Cliff Richard song title as a starting point.  How fun is that? 

For my card I used Crafty Ann's Tropical Beach digi stamp and I must admit that I really spent some time creating this card as rather than colouring the whole thing (coward that I am) I printed the scene on sky blue card and then built up the layers colouring some layers with Promarkers and finally using real sandpaper for the beach.  I'm pleased with the result, but must admit it wasn't a card to be made in a hurry!  Great fun to make though.

My Cuddly Buddly character in bikini was stamped onto card, coloured with Promarkers and then cut out and attached to the acetate front of the card.

 

This photo taken sideways on shows the acetate front and the layers at the back of the card.  It's the same style of card as a Christmas card I did a few weeks ago which can be seen here.  I love how these turn out and will be doing some more soon.  They are easy, but I know Max and a few other people said they would like a tutorial so I will (time allowing) do one quite soon.

 

The sentiment is computer generated and after printing it out I remembered buying some sunshine charms quite a while ago and of course just had to dig them out.   Three hours later and craftroom looking like a bombsite I found them and attached one to the sentiment with some gold thread.  Gold links would have looked good, but I thought I'd done enough searching for one day - LOL!  You will be pleased to know that I have bought a storage container today so that I can sort out all the wonderful embellishments that came to light during the mad scramble.

My card is also for the following challenges...

• Craftalicious - Birthdays
• Stamp Something - Go Digital
• Daring Cardmakers - 'I want you to think of a beautiful summer day looking over the bright blue sea glistening in the sunshine. What do you see?'
• Cupcake Craft challenge - Acetate 
• Cutie Sunday - Sun, Beach and Ocean
• Sentimental Sunday - I can see clearly now - sentiment and acetate
• Crafty Calender Challenges - Summer

Have a fantastic weekend everyone.  

Ann xxx

Dancing in the rain...

This is one of the cards I did at York after some brilliant tuition from Irene on the use of Polychrome pencils.  Ooooooooooh I really didn't realise how fabulous they are to use.  Think I can feel another addiction coming on!

The Nellie Snellen die cut scalloped circle and the stamp, which I believe is a Cuddly Buddly one, were all from Irene's stash that she took for us to use in York.  On the day I made this card if we had gone out instead of crafting we would have been splashing around in the snow not rain!

Other materials used...

• white card for base and matting and layering
• red card
• red pearls and white organza ribbon
• Swiss Dots folder and Scor-pal for embossed frame

Challenges...

• Cupcake Craft Challenge - Round and Round
• Crafty Ann's Challenge - new technique (using Sansador and polychrome pencils was completely new to me - everyone else is probably groaning and saying where has she been all her life?  Struggling with watercolours that's where!!)
• Alphabet Challenge - Red

Thank you for looking and all the amazing comments I receive.  So kind - hope everyone has a fantastic day.

Pink Elephant Summer Challenge

Yes this week at The Pink Elephant we are celebrating 'Summer' ! I know we don't seem to have really had one yet properly in England this year, but we can always pretend and in any case I have loads of happy memories of being on the beach at Great Yarmouth in the rain making sandcastles. No offence to Great Yarmouth it was probably raining everywhere else in England too.

My Summer card has a cute Cuddly Buddly stamped image for the focal point. I coloured the image with Promarkers and then realised that none of my pinks matched the paper I had chosen to take to Irene's with me. Yes this was made at Irene's and she encouraged me to use her pearls, which I really like as an addition.

Due to the non matching colours I decided to do some paper piecing - hmmmmmmm make mental note at this point to never ever paper piece images that have loads of detail. It took many layers to get the right finish on this card, but I do like the end result.

The shells are from a stamp set by Pink Cat Studio.

Just playing...

with my new Promarkers. I love the smooth colour you can achieve with them, but sometimes they seem to make the stamped ink bleed a little. I will have to practice more I think.

This card is for the challenge at http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/ where they have an 'open' theme until the 8th January.

Materials used:

• Cuddly Buddly rubber stamp
• Promarkers, Sakura stardust pens and water colour crayons
• Lilac papers by Papermania
• lilac plain card, jewels, button and organza ribbon from stash
  
  

First Card 2009...

I really can't believe it is 2009. It doesn't seem long since we celebrated the turn of the century and thought everything (electrical) would fall apart because the computer chips weren't happy about the zeros or something along those lines.

Anyway no planes dropped out of the sky then or now and everything kept in working order - well more or less!!

My first card for the New Year is a 'Thank you' one for a dear friend and also for the challenge at http://tandastamps.blogspot.com/ which is 'Thank you , Thank you , Thank you'. I guess we all have lots of thank yous to both say and send this week.

I have used some fabulous papers I got for Christmas by Papermania and a Cuddly Buddly stamp for the main image. The image has been coloured using my new Promarkers (love them - thank you for encouraging me to get them Chrissie) and water colour crayons. The criss cross ribbon was created using a Cuttlebug border die.

Ismaki - Challenge 12

Trust me to do last week's Ismaki challenge this week - I don't know - I suppose I will have to blame my age!! Anyway does it really matter? I really enjoyed myself making these cards and want to say thank you so much to everyone involved in creating the wonderful card maps and ideas on http://ismaki.wordpress.com/ . I will certainly do more using these maps in the future.

Both cards are on a lilac theme and use papers from the DCWV Floral Matt Stack. One is a Magnolia Tilda stamp and the other a really sweet Cuddly Buddly that a friend stamped for me. Thank you Irene!!!