Floral Delights !

Happy Saturday dear Readers, hope you are having a great weekend.

I'm a couple of days late sharing this project with you - it's a small batch of cards I created as my DT project for this week's Cute Card Thursday Challenge, which started last Thursday.  The challenge theme this week is 'Floral Delights' and our prize sponsor is Bugaboo Stamps.

I used Distress Stains in Faded Jeans, Antique Linen and Fired Brick and the 'splat' technique - using the tip on the DS to 'smash' the bottle onto the cardstock with enough force to create a splattering of colour.  

Using a set of circle Nesties I diecut a circle from white card and a slightly larger circle from red card.  I then stamped onto the white circle using a stamp from the SU! 'Flower Shop' set and Tuxedo Black Memento Ink.  I then added DS splats randomly over the circle.

I cut the white circle down the centre vertically and made horizontal cuts off-centre on each side to create an asymmetrical shape.  These pieces were then attached to the red circle, leaving a space between each piece to allow the red to show through.

Finally, I stamped another flower from the same stamp set using SU! Midnight Muse ink and scrap of white card, cut out the flower shape using the matching SU! punch and attached in the centre.  I then stamped the circular sentiment image using a stamp from a Hero Arts set and SU! Cherry Cobbler ink and punched out with a small scallop punch, again from SU!.  I attached this to the centre of the flower.

These card were created as Thank You cards as I needed a number of them to send to my lovely family and pals who spoiled me with so many fabulous Birthday gifts earlier this month.  Here are a couple of pics of my gifts - thank you all so much ! 

The 'eagle-eyed' amongst you will have spotted the Flower Shop stamp set and matching punch I used on today's cards.

Thanks for dropping by today, hope you enjoyed your visit.

Three Little Pigs

I have a real fun card to share with you today, how can you help but smile when you see these cute little piggies ?

I'm afraid I don't know the manufacturer of the stamp as I found this image in my box of stamped images waiting to be coloured and used in a project.  I wondered if it might be a Penny Black stamp, but so far I haven't been able to track it down.  If anyone recognises the image, please let me know the manufacturer and name of stamp an I'll update this post.

I coloured the three little piggies using my Promarkers, then layered the image on dark blue card.  I created the background layer using Distress Inks applied using a stencil brush through a Memory Box stencil.  This technique gave me a lovely subtle effect, perfect for a background layer.

The fabby Happy Birthday bunting was stamped from the 'Streamers' set of stamps by Shaggy Dog Tails, which my lovely pal Jacqueline gave me as a birthday gift recently.  I coloured the letters with Promarkers then added Stardust Stickles to make it a bit 'blingy'.  I added Gold Stickles on the bobble hat and Glossy Accents on all of the hats to give them dimension.

As the coloured image is quite 'busy' and I made the card for my youngest grandson who was 10 years old recently, I decided to keep all the other elements and layers very clean and simple.

My grandson was delighted with his card as it make him laugh and he particularly liked the piggy in the middle !
 
Thanks for dropping by to see today's project, I do hope you enjoyed your visit.

... of Crafting, Clocks and Cake !

I can't believe how much time has passed since I last posted on my Blog, so much has happened and I have lots to tell you.

Firstly, I had a great weekend with my crafting pals a our 'Craftathon 2014' this year.   We are a group of crafters who met online through the Craftbubble Forum, which is sadly not in existence now, but we all still keep in touch regularly and we try to meet up a couple of times a year.  My pal Kathy has written an excellent description of Craftathon on her blog here if you'd like to learn more.

I thought I'd share a few pix of the weekend activities to give you a taste of all the fun we had.  Our main project for the weekend was to decorate/alter a Tando Creative clock blank.  In addition to this, we all put together a 'shoe box' project where we made an item and then put together a set of the materials we used so that everyone else could replicate our design or use the materials in their own way to create a unique design.  This gave us six projects to work on over the weekend in addition to the clock.

Here's my finished clock

 

I covered the blank with black gesso first

 

 

Then I used a sheet of Graphic 45 Steam Punk Spells 12 x 12 paper and a few stickers from a sheet in the same range plus the Steam Punk Spells 1 set of stamps to decorate the clock.  I haven't decided yet whether I'll add the pendulums to the bottom, they are gessoed ready but I'm still thinking on it.

Here's how everyone else finished their clocks - I love how they are all so different

My shoebox project was this altered chipboard shape

 

I stamped the Create, Inspire, Dream stamps onto canvas heart shapes using Versacraft ink then ironed to make the ink permanent.  I made the rose embellishments using silicon moulds and air dry clay, then coloured them using Distress Inks and a light brushing of Treasure Gold guilding paste.  The background is papers from the DoCrafts Madame Peyraut range, the main sentiment is an Inkyliscious stamp and the shaped layers cut with a set of nesties.  All layers distress with Distress Inks and Treasure Gold.

 

Here's what everyone made with their pack of materials

 

 

Here we are, stash unpacked and all settling down to work on the first day

Lauren's shoebox project was this cute birdhouse made using a Sizzix die - this is how everyone's turned out, so pretty aren't they

 

Cherry challenged us with a journal page for her shoebox project

 

 

 here are the three which were finished by the end of the weekend, such creative work from the Craftashoniers

 

My Dad's shoebox project was a clock made using an old CD/DVD with a selection of designs to choose from, these three were finished by the end of the weekend.

Deb set us the task of creating a pretty door hanger, here's her original - front

and back - so pretty in pink !

 

and our interpretations of Debs' design



Sadly I don't seem to have a pic of Kathy's shoebox tag book project which was splendid, but here are the ones finished by a couple of the Craftathoniers

 

Nicola's shoebox project was to create a decorative tag using a number of techniques, to produce a lovely finished tag like her original (here she shows each of the stages)

 

 

 

My Niece joined us for the first day and here's her beautiful finished clock - well done Becky

 



 

And here's my Dad's fabulous finished clock

 

 

And now to Cake !

 

Nicola spoiled us all by bringing along her delicious homemade cake which was greatly enjoyed by all over the weekend - slurp....

 

 

 

We all went out for dinner on the first evening at a local pub/restaurant

 

 



 

at the end of the meal, they surprised me with a delicious birthday cake, complete with candles !  It was my birthday a few days later and I received some fabulous handmade cards and great gifts,  I was thoroughly spoiled - thanks everyone

 



 

Eventually the weekend came to a close, here we all are in our last group pic 

 

We all agreed that this year's format with a main project plus the individual 'shoebox' projects work really well and we are likely to repeat it at next year's get together at Craftathn 2015.  We were able to take away with us the packs of materials for the shoebox projects we didn't manage to finish over the weekend so we could complete them once back home.

 

This was a rather picture intensive post, thanks if you've stuck it though to the end and checked out some of the things I got up to since my last post.

 

I have a few more to share with you over the coming days, I hope you've enjoyed today's posting.