Noah's Christening

Hi everyone, long time no post!

My back went out on me again last week from, believe it or not, doing a lot of writing!  Strenuous work I do you know!  And then on top of that I started to get a sore finger and on Monday evening, after I cleaned off my nail polish, I discovered that under my nail was full of pus!  Eww!  So I was talked into going to the doctor on Tuesday (I felt a bit odd going to see the doctor about a sore finger!  I was going to do the whole "it hurts when I touch my wrist, it hurts when I touch my elbow...I have a sore finger" thing!  But I didn't. lol!) and I'm now on anti-biotics.  I must admit that the infection must've been making me feel icky all over as I feel a lot better now.

I thought I'd share a card with you that I made a good while ago for my Mummy and Daddy to give to my nephew on his Christening.  Mummy said she wanted a really special one so I did my best - here it is...

 It's a large 8x8" card from Craftwork Cards and I thought I'd put a cute wee pic of the man himself onto it!  (I have asked permission to put his pic on my blog and they said OK!)  I also added his date of birth as requested but as it's a Christening card, the date of birth disappears when you open it cos it's an easel card!

I didn't use designer papers on this one, instead I used the gorgeous designer fabric from the Beau Château set by Stampin' Up!, I stitched around each piece with my sewing machine.  The gorgeous lace is from my stash along with the pearls and diamantés.  The pleated ribbon is by Melissa Francis.  I added the date of the Christening for when the card is open.  The sentiments are computer generated using the font "Penhurst".

The dies I have used are all Spellbinders - circles, labels 3 and Grand Nestibilities Decorative Elements Circles.  I also used a Stampin' Up! label punch.

Here's the inside

The day went really well and the wee man was so good and looked gorgeous!

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges:

Bunny Zoe's Crafts Challenge; Ribbon
Fussy & Fancy Challenges; Celebrations
Moving Along With The Times; Shape Up
One Stitch At A Time; Anything goes
Papercrafting Journey; Anything goes
The Paper Shelter; Easel cards
Quirky Crafts Challenges; Favourite things - my favourite things are - easel cards, lace, and of course the picture of my nephew!
The ABC Challenge; X for xtra special
Whimsey Stamps Inspirations Challenges; Shabby Chic

Thanks for looking!
 

Happy Mother's Day!

Hello everyone and a special Happy Mother's Day to all the mum's out there, I hope you're all having a lovely day and are being spoilt!  I'm going to spoil my mum soon - just need to finish this and wrap the present!

I'm not showing my Mother's Day card today though cos it's time for a new challenge at Eclectic Ellapu and it was the lovely NanaConnie's turn to choose the theme and as it is her birthday next week - on St. Patrick's Day - she has asked us all to make something with the theme of...

Birthdays!

So a lovely easy challenge this time!

I actually made mine a while back and this is what I did.

A nice simple card for a nice simple theme!  I used Milly Flower Power by LOTV and coloured her with the following promarkers:  Skin; Sunkissed pink, Oatmeal, Blush, Pastel pink. Flower; Magenta, Carmine, Cocktail pink, Orange, Pumpkin, Honeycomb, Lush green, Emerald, Honeydew. Dress; Burgundy, Hot pink, Lipstick red, True blue, Sky blue, Powder blue. Hair; Umber, Chestnut, Cocoa. Ground and shading; Shale, Caramel, Satin, Blender.

The papers are Stampin' Up! Cheerful Treat.  The ribbon is also Stampin' Up!.  The sentiment is Wild Rose Studio on Stampin' Up punches!  The border punch is a Martha Stewart one and the diamanté buckle is from my stash.

As always, the inside follows the theme from the front.

So take a minute to pop over to Eclectic Ellapu to check out what the rest of the DT have made!

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges:

Crafty Ribbons Challenge; Anything goes with ribbon
Crafty Sentiments Designs Challenge Blog; Pretty in pink
Fashionista Challenge; Pink
Fussy and Fancy Challenges; Flowers
Oldie But A Goodie; Feeling floral
Passion For Promarkers; One for the ladies
Stamp N Doodle; A card for a female
Totally Papercrafts; Punch it
Whoopsidaisy Challenge; 2 patterned papers

Thanks for looking!
 

The Birthday Train and a Mini Blog Hop!

Morning everyone!

Still cold and wet here in my part of the woods - very cold and wet!  I thought I was gonna need a boat to get home from work yesterday and the bad weather hadn't even hit us then!

I'm not gonna talk about the weather any longer as I've got a bit of a long post for you today!

It's Tuesday morning and that means there's a 50/50 chance of a new challenge with the Creative Card Crew - and guess what?  Today is one of the days when we have a new challenge!

The challenge for the next fortnight is....

Purple!

And the fab sponsor for this challenge is Robyn's Fetish

They are offering a fabby prize of 4 digi's to the lucky winner!

The design team were lucky enough to get to play with some of their fab images and this is what I did:

The Robyn's Fetish image is called Choo Choo Charlie and I coloured it with Promarkers: Aubergine, Slate, Lilac, Forest Green, Lime Twist, Meadow Green, Sky Blue, Arctic Blue, Pastel Blue, Black, Cool Grey 5,4,2,1, Cocoa, Caramel & Sandstone.  Phew!  I added the text to the trailers on the computer before I printed the image and filled them up with some glossy accents and German glass glitter.

And just for fun I made the image into a slider!  Here it is at the start of it's journey..

 And here it is at the end of it's journey!

The papers are Stampin' Up! Cheerful Treat and the ribbon and sparkly brads are also Stampin' Up!  The cloud die is a Memory Box die.

The inside has more or less the same layout as the front and the sentiment is a Wild Rose Studio one stamped with memento ink in Elderberry.

So go have a look on the Creative Card Crew's blog to see the rest of the DT's fab creations!

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges:

By The Cute & Girly; Boys/Men
CRAFT Challenge; Children
Digi Doodle Shop Challenge; Anything goes
Fussy & Fancy Friday Challenge; Travel theme
I Love Promarkers; Occupations
Oldie But A Goodie; Show us your ribbons
Stamp & Create; Anything goes
The Squirrel & The Fox; Celebrate the occasion
Totally Papercrafts; For a child

And now back to the subject of the Design Team it's time for my first ever blog hop - and it's even a surprise one!

Our lovely teamie Jan only went and got married last week!  She looked so lovely and happy in her gorgeous photo's that the rest of the DT decided to throw a surprise blog hop in her honour and to say a big huge CONGRATULATIONS!

So if you're following the hop you should've landed here from Vicky's blog or if you want to start from the start (which seems like the sensible thing to do!) you can go straight to the Creative Card Crew blog.

Here's a wee card that I've made for the new Mr & Mrs Jan..

I decided to go for a circular card to symbolise the whole never-ending thing!  I used this fabby wedding couple stamp from The Greeting Farm and coloured it with the following Copics: Skin;E21,13,00,0000,R20.  Bride's hair; E55,53,51 Groom's hair;E37,35,33. Dress;E41,40,Y15,13,11,YG13. Suit;110,C10,8,6,5,3.

The papers are by The Paper Company: Wedding Bouquet and Papermania: Vellum paper.  I used a Cheery Lynn Heart to Heart lace doily die and a Magnolia flourish die as well as Spellbinder and Go Kreate circle dies.  Another Wild Rose Studio stamp and Stampin' Up punches for the sentiment and finished it off with some Wild Orchid Crafts pearls.

The inside uses more of the same

So that just leaves me to say another congratulations to Jan and the next stop on the hop is Elisa's blog!

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Cute Card Thursday; A different shape
Divas By Design; Lovely layers
Dream Valley Challenges; Celebrations
My Heart Pieces; Anything goes
My Mums Craft Shop Challenge; Hearts & Flowers
Stamp n Doodle; Anything goes
Whimsy Stamps Challenge; Anything goes

Phew!  I told you it was a long post!  Thanks for sticking with me!

The Black & White Days

Morning all!

It's hard to believe another friday is here and it's time for another challenge on the Alphabet Challenge Blog!
We had lots of gorgeous entries for Hilde's Garden theme.  It was Mari's turn to choose the next theme and she chose....

H for Handmade Flowers!!

What an excellent challenge!!  There are so many ways to make flowers from diecuts to material to crochet and so many more!  I can't wait to see all the entries this fortnight!

So here's my card

 The image is "Violet" by Saturated Canary.  I've coloured her with my copics and I used all my C range of grey's from 00 to 10 and the 100 black as well as a black prisma pencil.  It was a real learning experience to colour an image just using greys, it really makes you think about light and shade, a good way to practice colouring!

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the papers are an old Stampin' Up! set, please correct me if I'm wrong!  The black bubbly paper just behind the image is from my stash and had no name on it.  I diecut it with a Spellbinder die.  The ribbon is also from my stash.  The sentiment on the Stampin' Up! punched shape is by Wild Rose Studio.  The pearls are from Wild Orchid Crafts - I wasn't sure which colour to use out of the pack, so I just used them all!

My handmade flowers were made by cutting circles out of organza - 3 large, 3 medium and 3 small.  I lit a candle and started singeing around the cirles.  When I got near the end I accidently singed a bit too far into the circle and it sort of shrivled up!  I quite liked the effect, so I started going back over all the circles and singeing them all through the circles, not just around the edges.  I then stitched 3 different sized circles together and finished off the front middle with a black swarovski bead and repeated for the other 2 flowers.
I'm not sure if this technique will work for all types of organza as this one has the silver sparkly stripes through it which sort of stopped the organza from totally shrivelling up.  I'm gonna have fun trying it out though!
**If you do try this technique though, please be very careful with the candle - it is a naked flame and you are sticking material right into it so it can catch fire.  Just make sure you keep a close eye on the material and if you see a flame starting on it blow it out quickly.  And make sure you are at an appropriate area with a heat-proof mat.**

The inside is a continuation from the front.

And that's my card!

The rest of the DT have made some stunning creations so head on over to the Alphabet Challenge Blog to see them and join in yourself!

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges:
Anything Goes; Colour combo - black with one other
Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge; Girlie time
Crafty Ribbons Challenge; Flowers
Fab & Funky Challenges; Use fabric on your card
Moving Along With The Times; Keep it real
One Stop Craft Challenge; Monochrome
The Poodles Parlour; Monochromatic
Sweet Stampin Challenge; Flower Power
Truly Scrumptious; Anything goes

Thanks for looking!