A simple birthday card...

Recently I picked up this fabulous Hero Art clear stamp set full of elephants at a bargain price.  Here is my first card made using the set.  I used the elephant stamp that has a bold outline and stamped it on to floral paper so that I could paper piece the design.

Challenges...

• Sketch and Stash - I used their fab sketch (new stash stamps - old stash Marianne die)
• Corrosive Challenge - Summer Colours
• Charismas Cardz Challenges - Something that flies (Dumbo)
• Cupcake Challenges - things with tails

Have a good week everyone and today's top tip is 'If you lend a large can of black outdoor metal paint to anyone and they give it back to you in a carrier bag do not trust them to have replaced the lid tightly'.  I speak from experience when I say a carrier bag full of black paint is not easy to sort out without getting covered and my finger nails may never recover from this latest disaster.

Ann xxx

Penny Black and more gingham...

I seem to have had quite a craze on checked paper and card this week, which as the challenge at The Penny Black Saturday Challenge  is 'Check it out' turns out to be quite a good thing.  The lilac check card I've used here is by Kanban and is double sided with plain lilac on one side and the check on the other.  Really handy as the colours are a perfect match with no effort involved.  The stamp is one of my NEC purchases - sigh - I love the Penny Black stamps I bought!  I used Promarkers to colour it and then matted on to the card.  The sentiment is from a set of clear sentiment stamps by Hero Arts.

The flowers were made using another NEC purchase (there were quite a few) - my Nellie Snellen flower punches, which not only punch the flower, but emboss it too.  Flower brads were from stash and unbelievably the exact same colour as the card - wow how often does that happen!?

Additional Challenges...

• Sketch and Stash - the sketch (brilliant sketch and one I will use time and time again I'm sure) - new stash is stamp and punches
• Cupcake Craft Challenge - Make your own flowers.
• Magical Crafts - Animal Antics

Training again at work today, so won't be blogging until tonight.  Have a wonderful day everyone.

Ann xxx

Pink Elephant Day - Invite to a Bun Fight...

The theme at The Pink Elephant this week is Party Invites.  My card is a combination of both a tea party invite and a Mother's Day Card.  

My daughter, Shelley, wants to invite Grandma round to her new house for tea around Mother's Day and as she has already asked me to make a card for her to give Gran I decided it might be a good idea to combine the invitation and the Mother's Day card together. 

I was thinking along the lines of how we always used to call tea parties 'bun fights' and that led me to trying to create a card around the theme of a cake stand full of buns.

The base of the cake stand was cut using the Celebrations Cricut cartridge and then I added the layers using strips of the same card.  The buns are from a really cute stamp set by Hero Arts.  I'm disappointed with the card as it's not come out quite like I visualised it, but Gran will love it as it has tons of glitter and bling. 

My card is also for the challenges at...

• My Time to Craft - Just for Mum (or Grandma)
• Totally Papercrafts - Mum
• Pile it on - one colour and neutral
• Die Cut Dreams - No flowers allowed.

Have a great day everyone. 

You hoo!!!...

I have always loved Craft Stamper magazine, but since the revamp it has got better and better. This month's magazine is superb - crammed full of things I want to try and the best thing of all a free covermount stamp. How cool is this owl? I just love it!

My card is for the challenges at...

• Passion for Promarkers - this week's colours are pumpkin and cinnamon
• One Stop Craft Challenge - Embossing

Materials used:

• Owl covermount stamp from Craft Stamper Magazine
• Hero Arts sentiment stamp
• Tag cut using Cricut
• Promarkers - pumpkin -cinnamon and cocoa for shading
• DCWV - paper from 'Pocket full of posies' paper stack
• Core'rdinations cardstock
• Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder
• ribbon and brads from stash

Black and white flower silhouette...

I adore the sketches at Mojo Monday. Every week there is a stunning layout to follow, but this week is a specially important one as it is also doubling up as a challenge on the Stampin' Out Alzheimer's (SOA) event.

If you haven't heard anything about this please check it out. It's a very special event organised by Susannah Boyd to raise funds to stamp out Alzheimers. You can see a video by Susannah about the event at Paper Craft Planet .

There are masses of things going on at the SOA event including freebies (oooooooooh love those), giveaways, discount at various stores and great competitions. Don't miss out as the whole thing is only taking place for a short time - so if you want to join in please donate and sign up now.

My card is also for the challenge set by my friend Cynthia at Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog. This week Cynthia wanted us to think black and white with a silhouette stamp in the design. I do hope my silhouette flower by Hero Arts will be acceptable.

Monograms and Letters...

Monday again - oh gosh the weeks just fly by and of course Monday means that we have a new challenge over at the Pink Elephant. This week we are focusing on Monograms and Letters.

For one of my projects I decided to make a book mark. The initial stamp I used is one of four letters on a cube stamp I bought some time ago on ebay. I'm not really sure of the maker, but it is a beautiful design with the letter A entwined with an amaryllus flower.

My second project is something I have been wanting to do for sometime. It's a card to send to one of the children on Post Pals. If you haven't heard of this then do click on the 'Make a child smile' banner in my side bar. It is a very worthwhile organisation.

As you may have guessed my card is for a boy called Tom. I used my Cricut to cut out a large letter T tree and some leaves and then decorated the tree with animals from a Hero Arts clear stamp set.

I bought 3 small craft sets in a sale at Tesco last week and now I just need to make cards for Tom's sister and brother so that I can get the things sent off.

I hope my card and gift will bring smiles to the family, like many of the children on Post Pals they have a lot to contend with and it does help to lift spirits a little when the postman delivers something fun.

Inspirational Play Along...

Something really cool and quite different is happening over at the Pink Elephant today. Instead of our normal Thursday tutorial we are having a 'play along'. One of our DT (Robin Willis) has chosen an amazing plate design, which we hope will act as an inspirational spark for everyone's creativity.

For my card I chose to focus on the diamond pattern and the flower theme of the plate. If you would like to find out more and see what the other members of the DT came up with pop over to the Pink Elephant.

It would be great if you could join in. We would really love to see how the plate inspires other people.

Materials used on this card:

• DCWV - diamond patterned paper and matching plain paper from Spring Paper Stack
• Hero Arts sentiment stamp
• jewelled brads and border peel offs from stash
• punched leaves
• large leaf swirl cut on Cricut

Pink Elephant Day...

I love Mondays especially when the sun is shining like today and maybe Spring is not really that far away, but one of my favourite things about Mondays is that it's time for a new challenge at the Pink Elephant.

This week sees our very first 'RECIPE' challenge where we give you ingredients to use on your card from our very own Ella's kitchen.

This week the ingredients are ...

Diecuts and Ribbon

As you can see on my card I've used square die cut charms and ribbon threaded and tied through the button embellishment. I've also used ribbon to embellish the stamped sentiment on the front of my card.

The stamped flower and small flower pots are from a set of 12 really cute stamps by Personal Impressions called Hearts and Flowers.

This is the inside of my card showing the decorated panel and the panel to write a message to the recipient.

The front of my card is cut short to reaveal the decorated panel.

The square die cut charms are from a set of 4 called charms by Cuttlebug.

I stamped the images on to white and then coloured them using Derwent Inktense watercolour crayons.

On the front of the card I have used a wonderful sentiment from a Hero Arts stamp, matted this on to silver and then embellished with white organza ribbon.

All the papers used are by Making Memories and the border was created using the Martha Stewart Lace Doily punch.

I do hope you will have chance to join in our challenge at the Pink Elephant this week. It's sponsored by yours truly and I will be sending my Ribbon Holder (from last week's tutorial) and an organza bag full of organza ribbons to the winner.

Cupcake bling...

As promised when showing my card for the Pink Elephant Challenge here is some more of my Cuttlebug embossing on glitter card. On this card I used two different colours of glitter card and embossed the pink using the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.

The effect doesn't really show up that well in the photo, but in reality the extra dimension created by the embossing makes the light bounce off the glitter in all different directions.

My card is for two challenges...

Bring on the Bling at the Cuttlebug Spot and Cupcakes at Charisma Cardz.

Materials used:

• pink and lilac glitter card
• silver mirri card
• Hero Arts Clear Cupcake stamp set
• gems and sentiment peel off from stash

The inside of the card has 'You deserve a day sprinkled with fun' and a tiny cupcake stamped on it which was done using stamps from the same set.

Green and black...

Isn't this lady image just fabulous? I just love the pose and the wonderful folds on her dress.

I created the card for the challenge at http://rainbowladyschallengeblog.blogspot.com/ which was to make a card using the colours green and black. I'm sorry to say that I'm so late getting this card uploaded that the challenge has now changed, but I'm sure Cynthia will forgive me!!

As I have used some of my Christmas stash...

adhesive pearls and chocolate (not on the card - eaten while crafting - lol) the card is also great for the card at http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/ or it would have been yesterday!! I am having such a good week - need to make mental note to create cards for challenges while the challenge is still running.

Things can only get better!

Materials used:

• rubber stamp (I think this is one from Frantic Stamper, but am not 100% sure)
• green paper by DCWV
• green lace paper by Joanna Sheen
• cream card
• pearls from stash
• black organza ribbon
• You're SPECIAL sentiment stamp by Hero Arts
• Cuttlebug Swiss dots folder
• Derwent Inktense and Sakura Clear Stardust to colour image

Just been to Cynthia's Challenge Blog at http://rainbowladyschallengeblog.blogspot.com/ and this week is 'Fashion' - so my green and black creation fits just fine - I'm not late at all, but the first!!!

Autumn Ismaki Sketch...

Another autumnal card using Joanna Sheen's fabulous CD 'The Cardmaker's Year'. I really love this CD - I know it's been out for ages but it's new to me and I just really like the way the images are sorted into months of the year. Really cool idea.

My card is fits the challenge at http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/ this week which is to make a card using Autumn as the theme. I have used this week's sketch at http://ismaki.wordpress.com/ which was designed by Isabelle Norris. I'm sorry Isabelle but I don't feel to have done your sketch justice - I've had one of those times when things started out well but went down hill rapidly!!! I'm only half pleased with the finished card.

Materials used:

• brown base card
• burnt orange card
• Joanna Sheen CD 'The Cardmaker's Year'.
• embossed leaf punch
• orange vellum and brown pearlescent paper (for leaves)
• brown brads
• Hero Arts clear sentiment stamps

No Cards - three bookmarks!

The challenge on http://magnoliachallengeblog.blogspot.com/ this week is to be creative with one of the Magnolia range of stamps but you are not allowed to make a card.

I chose to make a bookmark as I will soon be going away on holiday and always spend a lot of my time sitting in the sun with a good book. As the Magnolia books stamp was given to me by friend, Irene, I thought I would make her one at the same time. I also did one for my friend Anne, who is going on holiday with me.

The books stamp is by Magnolia. The owl and 'yoohoo' words are from a clear set of stamps by Hero Arts - I haven't got the Magnolia owl. They were all coloured using water colour crayons. The names and hearts are also stamped using the Hero Arts dot alphabet set.

I decided to laminate the book marks just incase any splashes land on them when we're sat at the side of the pool.

Hang in there!!!

Hmmmmmmmmm could do with sending this card to my self considering the way I feel this week but not to worry things can only get better!

The challenge on http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com/ was 'animalia' with a brief of creating a card with any animal on it. At http://tandastamps.blogspot.com/ the title for the challenge is 'Zoofari' and you can create a card with any zoo animal in it.

I had all kinds of ideas in my head but ended up making a very very simple card using some of my new stamps from Hero Arts and Autumn Leaves - both sets have similar animals in and I thought they would work quite well together. The 'hang in there' words are also in the set.

The card is dark brown and seems to be blending in to the background a little on this photo - sorry about that. I used Marvy Le Plume pens directly onto the stamps and and then using a damp paint brush I dragged the colour from the edges to colour the image. The card is from DCWV and the leaves are from a little pack of Jolees I was given.