A silly little mini card...

This card really is mini- only 10cm across. The crazy thing is, I will probably have to put a 'large' stamp on it because of the layers, 3D foam and brads! Not including the card itself, there are 8 layers. My poor Big Shot machine! Had a right rummage around to find the little flower punch (that I knew I had but had not seen for ages!) to make the little flowers from the corner offcuts after cutting out the circles and found mini brads in the three colours. The sentiment is one of the, many, stamps I just had to have from Elzybells before they close. As you can't turn the card around to read it, this is what it says :-)
"It's been one of those days and then you get home to this card and some mad person is making you turn this card round and round to read what it says! Tomorrow will be better, promise. Have a great day!"
I am entering this for:
Cute Card Thursday's challenge of 'texting crazy'-make a feature of the sentiment.
Colour Create- Hot pink, warm orange and saffron.
CRAFT- hot and spicy colours.
Craftalicious- make your own flowers.

I faded the paper for the inside using Photoshop to give a pattern that I could still write on and stamped a tiny flower on the back of the envelope.

Football Birthday card...

One of the men in our church housegroup is a big Manchester United fan so this is his birthday card! I went on their website and found the kit for the new season which I then drew onto this Papermania image, after it was stamped, with one of the pens you get with Promarker sets before colouring it with my promarkers. I just could not get the camera to pick it up :-( but the red backing paper has footballs, scarves and stars stamped on it in red. The word stamp is one of my old wood mounted ones from Funstamps stamped with die based ink and tinted around the edges- I have green fingers of the non-gardening variety today!
I'm entering this for The Stampman Challenge of 'Take two colours'- red and green in my case, and also Totally Stampalicious who have 'Birthday cards' as their challenge.

Boy's birthday card...

This is for my husband's business partner's son who is 5 next week. It is ages since I last used these clear stamps from Woodware, they were among the first I bought, but they are so cute for this age group! I followed the sketch at Sketch Saturday and the theme of 'for a child or baby' at Allsorts. I had been admiring some computer generated circular sentiments on Donna's blog so I emailed to ask if she could tell me how she did them- turns out she did a tutorial ages ago so she sent me a link. I was on a different version of Word but figured it out and here is my first go.

"Born in the USA"...

This card really reminds me of that Bruce Springsteen song! Not really surprising seing as the papers came from an Independence Day digi scrapping kit- 'Freedom' by Summertime Designs. I made this card ages ago for my son's birthday but never got around to posting it on my blog. The layout matches the sketch at Papertake Weekly so I thought I would post it and enter this.

Fancy 'Curtsy'...

This card is for a friend from church. I chose this Sugar Nellie stamp because I think these images are rather trendy and quirky which is perfect for Jolene.  I have never used my promarkers to colour dark skin before and found my colours lacking so had to take a trip to the art supplies shop for more pens! I based my colours on this gorgeous, richly patterned digi paper which was a free download from Summertime Designs and paired it with some core'dinations which I sanded lightly for that slightly worn look. The flowers were white and I coloured them to match the papers with my promarkers.
Sorry about the picture, I left it too late in the day to photograph this and the picture has come out rather dark but, as usual, I was being a last minute merchant and needed to give it last night!
I followed the sketch at Friday Sketchers and overcame the 'where to put the sentiment' issue by making yet another easel card! Stamp Something have 'something flowery' as their challenge and I'm entering this because the papers are so flowery, the paisley embossing has flowers in it and because of the flower embelishments.

Ladies who lunch...

Margaret, who has been a support assistant in our reception class for 19 years, retires this summer so I made this card for her. She is 65 but so elegant and young minded that this card had to be a 'not -your-typical-retirement-card'! I chose to use this Elzybells image and paper pieced the dresses from the digi paper which I scaled to size with Photoshop. The papers are a free download from Summertime Designs and the colours are very her! I love using tabs for sentiments but this time I used the end of a nestie labels 8 to make a shaped tab and I think it works well. I really need one of those things to help tie bows- I rarely use them as I have so much grief making them!

I am entering this card for the Pink Elephant challenge of 'brown' because all the DT cards are something with brown and I have a brown bow, brown in my paisley paper and have matted with brown too!

A Wedding card...

One of my colleagues at school is getting married in the summer holidays so I made this card to wish her a wonderful wedding day. I wasn't sure about her colours but she put up an invitation to the service on the board in the staffroom and it was cream and pink so that was what I went for and I was right. Still not really got to grips with colouring black with my promarkers without obliterating the stamp! I think I need to buy more greys. I computer generated the names to make it personal and added the gems for a bit of wedding sparkle! The stamp is Elzybells (grab them while you can as Elizabeth has reduced all her stock by 50% and is closing down) and the papers are a free download from Summertime Designs.
I am entering this card for Charisma Cardz pink week!

Teacher cards and gifts...

I needed to make 3 thank you cards for my son to give to his teachers- one for his classteacher, one for the PPA teacher who teaches him french and one for the classroom support. I was pushed for time because I also had a few other projects that I needed to make. For this reason I kept it simple and went for some purple gingham printed card that I had in my stash and I knew I had the purple pearlised card for matting and the silver mirri. The image is such a handy little bunch of flowers and so easy to colour quickly with my promarkers. I computer generated the greeting for each teacher for that personal touch and used my nesties to cut them- it is so easy to make multiple mounts with them in no time. I tend to use them with my old Sizzix Sidekick and an adapter for speed when I'm only using the small nesties.

I got each teacher one of the little citronella candle holders you can see quite a while ago because I saw them on offer! I wrapped them in tissue and celophane bundles and used curling ribbon to decorate.

I am entering these for the My time to Craft challenge as they have 'Check it out'- use checks on your project.

Cards for Men DT card- Challenge 15

This fortnight the challenge at Cards for Men is a recipe- 1 image, 2 design papers and 3 embellishments.

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This is my first DT card ever!!!

I used the 'My Guy Ian' image from Greetings Farm, coloured with Promarkers, and some fab free download papers from Summertime Designs called 'Freedom Ain't Free'. As you can see, I used the stitched check and the fine stripe papers and one of my fave layouts of 3 panels across the card. This is, yet again, an easel card- I love this style and it really solves my dilemas over where to put the sentiment! My 3 embellishments are the 3 silver star brads.
The sentiment is made with the great clear sets from Elzybells. I set out all the little stamps face down on my craftmat then carefully lifted out the word 'greatest'. I put my block on top to pick up the other stamps without moving them and stamped them in red. I put the remaining stamp on another block and inked it in blue before positioning it through the clear stamp.
Another thing that I keep reaching for at the moment is my Sizzlet corner die! This time I used the plain corner and added faux stitching with a white gel pen to tie in with the stitching detail on the paper.

Sad news...

I discovered Elzybells Stamps quite a while ago and love them, but now Elizabeth has, with regret, decided to close down the company. This is such a shame but I'm letting you know because she has reduced all her stamps by 50% so it is a great last chance to pick up any you have been admiring from afar! Here are a few of my cards made with her stamps:

Exciting news...

... I entered a Design Team call at Cards for Men and I was one of the three ladies chosen to join the team! I realised how it was going to be soon after my, now 8 year old, son was born- I couldn't sleep and I had my husband happily snoring on one side of me, my son in his crib snoring on the other side and our male dog snoring at the bottom of the bed! I was surrounded by blokes! So as you can see I have quite a few occasions to make male cards and, I know there are often groans at the mention of men's cards, but I enjoy making them. Why not pop over to the blog and take a look at the latest challenge and make a card for one of the men in your life?!

My Husband's Birthday card...

Another fishing image! This one is from Elzybells. This card is also from the Sketch Saturday sketch but it came together really easily! (See my last post for a card made using the same sketch that seemed like a really good idea but didn't really come off!) Just as I was putting it together I remembered that I had the little fish charm- I'm really pleased with this as the little touch of silver works well with the deep turquoise blues and fits with Charisma Cardz challenge to use something metal on your card. I have been looking at Secret Crafter's rules to see if I can enter another card but it doesn't say, so I will have a go at entering this one also for their 'water' challenge. His birthday is tomorrow but I'm safe putting it on my blog today as he doesn't look at it!

This looked better in my head!!!

I had the idea for this card and just had to make it. It took me ages to find the right papers but when I did the colours were perfect and I'm quite pleased with how the colouring went. (I think I'm starting to get to grips with my promarkers now.) But that's where the luck ran out!! I had trouble with the layout which was a sketch from Sketch Saturday. It wasn't the sketches fault- it was just that I couldn't get it to work with what I had! Looking at it now I think I should have trimmed the image closer or used an oval and put the sentiment on a separate piece so that I could overlap the image with it. Oh well- you live and learn!

I'm also entering this card for Passion for Promarkers 'Think of a Number' theme because of the countdown. The images and sentiment both come from my Murray and Ethel sets which really make me smile- I must make some more cards with them soon.

Dad's birthday card...

Dad has always loved looking at boats and used to drag us off to walk around harbours when we were on holiday so I thought this image would be perfect for him.

The papers are a free download called 'Fathers and Fedoras' from Summertime Designs and I have used them a few times before because I love the set. I wanted it to be mainly blue but I'm really glad I used the touch of light brown from the argyle on the image too. I have been collecting Promarkers for a while now and have quite a few, so why is it that you could always do with a shade that you don't have yet?! In this case True Blue and French Navy- Oh well, it will have to wait because I have just ordered new stamps! I'm loving the sizzlets corner die with 4 different corners- I would have put this one down as too ornate and feminine for a man's card but in navy I think the swirls look quite wave like and fill the gap perfectly.
I am entering this for Secret Crafter's Saturday Challenge as they have a theme of 'water'.

A Birthday Card for my Godmother...

I just had to use Dancing Maggie from Sugar Nellie for Aunty Barbara who has lived up in Scotland for most of her life and, as usual, I found a check paper to paper piece her kilt. I followed the sketch from the Sugar Bowl and the option of scallops. Creative Card Crew and Cuttlebug Challenges both have an Easel Card as their challenges. The circle has been embossed in the Perfect Paisley folder from Cuttlebug on Core'dinations and lightly sanded which fits with Allsorts challenge of embossing. I 'heart' Promarkers has stripes which I have used as one of my papers. Simon says has 'check it out' - the kilt and tag are done in the same checked paper. I got out my old Sizzix Original die to make the scalloped tag which fits with Little Red Wagon's challenge. Practical Scrappers challenged us to get out our border punches which I have done with a Fiscars punch for my stand. Colour Create have 'baby pink, peach and black' as their colour scheme- found it hard to get in the black so that is my stamping! Dutch Dare have a flower photo as their inspiration and I tried colouring some white flowers with my promarkers- they came out a bit strongly coloured so I will start lighter next time but not bad for a first try! And finally, Crafts and me have birthdays as their challenge. Wow- this is going to take some linking so I had better get off and do that!!!