Happy Birthday Laura...

Yes today is my daughter Laura's birthday and it's also Pink Elephant Day so the card I made for her is also for our challenge.

This week is recipe week and the recipe is to use...

circles - scallops and punches!

I used a nestability circle, a the heart shaped punched frame and billions of scallops created by nestability dies.

The Art Deco image of the glamourous lady is a stamp by Hearts in Touch. It is actually part of a whole sheet of unmounted stamps everyone of which I absolutely love.

To accompany Laura's card I've also made her a wall hanging of 'love' quotes on decorated circles as a little extra for her birthday.



I made one of these before when she was at Granada Uni and she loved it, but when she came home she left it for one of her friends who was staying on and since then has pestered me endlessly to make her another.

I'm not keen on doing the same thing twice so I guess I put it off for a while. However, I think this one is the new improved version as I now have the circle nestability die and I've added so much bling you need dark glasses to look directly at it!!

The gold hanger at the top is actually part of some earrings that Laura gave me last week. Beautiful earrings that wouldn't hang properly, but oh wow they are superb for pulling to bits to use on cards 'n' stuff.

The sentiments are all computer generated and then centered and cut out using the nestability largest scalloped circle. Check out the bling - wow!

I actually have some packs of gemstone letters (bought in a sale), which I now wish I had bought more off, because I've found that by carefully cutting between the gemstones you can use each stone individually and on each sheet of letters you get thousands of gems (well alot!).

The pink central frame is made using a corner punch. I saw the technique for this explained on Becca Feeken's blog Amazing Paper Grace quite some time ago. Becca made some stunning cards using corner punches to make frames and was kind enough to share instructions for how to do the frames with visitors to her blog. If you have never seen Becca's work do pop over there - you will be amazed at her talent.

Well have a fantastic day everyone and I do hope you'll have chance to join us this week at the Pink Elephant. All the DT love visiting everyone's blogs and seeing the amazing samples everyone does - there is just so much talent out there.

Woman...

Another 'anytime' card and one that has been received by my dear friend so I can post it here without spoiling the surprise for her. Twenty one gemstones on this card so you can tell it was for someone important!!!

The wonderful lady image is yet another one from the Art Deco sheet by Frances Naeve at Hearts in Touch. Fabulous images - I really can't understand why it has taken me so long to get round to using them. This one was painted using Derwent Inktense pencil crayons and then matt and layered on to a frame made using my Cricut.

I only have the two cartridges that came with the machine at the moment, but oh there are such wonderful things on them. This frame is the certificate cut at the 4" setting - I can't believe that the machine can cut such intricate detail - it's just amazing.

Friends who read my blog will know that earlier in the week I was struggling as I only had the instruction book in Dutch! Well you will be pleased to know that thanks to my friend Susan I don't need to start learning Dutch!! She sent me the link to the manual available on line at the Cricut Website. Thanks so much Susan - I think I might have struggled to do much more with no proper instructions.

My card is also for Challenge 52 at My Time to Craft which this week has the theme of 'Woman'
and for the challenge at No time to stamp where we are encouraged to use white mats on our cards.

Hats can be distressing...

Well they can be if you are trying to choose one that won't blow down the road at the first bit of breeze or make you look like Hyacinth Bucket!!

However, ladies in hats on rubber stamps are never distressing - as I looked through my stamps for the 'Hats' challenge at My time to stamp I realised that I have quite a few of them and I love them all.

I decided to use this stamp by Frances Naeve at Hearts in Touch. It's from one of her sheets of Art Deco images which are fabulous. As I was checking the link I discovered that the lady image used in my other card posted today is from the same sheet of stamps!!! Must change that posting to the correct stamp designer!!

My card is also for the ABC challenge which this week is 'Distressing' - hence my title and ramblings about hats blowing off down the road.

I used the Divine Swirls embossing folder and distressed the embossing with a sanding block. As the black card I used had a brownish back I was really surprised to see the white pop through. Obviously the black must be a coating which is sooooooooo easy to remove.

I trimmed the image with a gemstone and added a tag embellished with a silver sentiment peel off. A black feather is lurking under the tag as I love feathers and Art Deco images.

It's Pink Elephant Day...

I love Mondays - the start of a new week and best of all time for a new challenge at the Pink Elephant Challenge Blog. This week we have a colour theme for everyone to try and the colours are ...

Brown, Pink and Green - a stunning combination.

Do take a look at the amazing work by the rest of the design team as they have all worked their own little bit of magic with these three colours.

For my card I chose vintage paper by Making Memories and a small lady stamp which I think is from a collection by Frances Naeve at Hearts in Touch.

I coloured the image with Derwent Inktense pencil crayons and a Sakura clear stardust pen. A couple of pink gems added to the glamour of the dress.