Cards for Men DT card- Challenge 18...

Our challenge at Cards for Men this fortnight is 'Long Summer Days' which will run until 12th September.

Phindie's Place are sponsoring this challenge and she has offered the fabulous prize of a $10 gift certificate. The DT were lucky enough to be given some of her images to make their cards and they are just gorgeous- if you have not seen her designs before you must pop over to her store and have a look!

Here's a bit about our sponsor: Phindy's Place Digi Stamps is where you can find hundreds of beautifully drawn and detailed images for all your handmade card, scrapbook and paper crafting projects. Digi stamping is a new endeavor for children's book illustrator Philomena O'Neill and she enjoys drawing charming line images for crafters to color and embellish for their own creative efforts. Philomena likes to think of this as a collaboration between two artists.

So... on to my card! I could not resist this little guy from Phindie's Place! My son is now 8, but this reminded me so much of him when he was little- he was a gorgeous 'chunky' little lad who was a determined walker at nine and a half months, although he was a bit older before he decided that he liked ice cream and I remember some of the faces he pulled at how cold it was when he first had it!

I love these colours together, as you can tell from my blog background, and they are such lovely summery shades. The papers are a digi download from the Stuff to Scrap 'Great Outdoors' blog hop.

I would like to enter this card into Papertake Weekly's 3-2-1 recipe challenge (mine is 3 DP, 2 ribbons and 1 image). Cooking it up with Katie have 'for a boy, checks and add some brown'. Stampin' for the Weekend, Crafty Emma's, Bee Crafty and The Paper Players all have 'anything goes'. Finally Corrosive Challenges have 'for the guys'.

Rock Chick...

This is my second card using the sketch from Sketch Saturday and it could not be more different to my first! I rotated and slightly rearranged some elements but the bits are basically the same; the other, however, was soft and natural whereas this is bright but grungy.

Still lovin' my digis- this one is called 'Whatever!' from Pollycraft and I even worked out how to paper piece it by setting up two A4 sheets on Photoshop and running it twice through my inkjet (don't do this with a laser printer). This was mainly out of necessity because of my lack of the right colour promarkers but I love the effect- although it was rather fiddly! Just had to put the pink streaks in the fringe although the shade of pink is bugging me already! I usually make felt flowers with my Sizzix originals dies but thought I would give this coloured mirri a go today. The hearts are also die cut with a Sizzlet die then I put the tiny gems on each. Allsorts have paper piecing as their challenge this week so I am entering this.

Parking thanks...

This is what I love about making your own cards- Where would you find a card that says 'Thank You For The Parking Space'?!!

My husband asked me to make this for him to give to somebody who has been letting him park each week while he goes to a meeting in town so he does not have to walk far to get to it- he has a back injury which makes this hard for him.
The layout is from Sketch and Stash and my new stash used on this card is the digi stamp from Pollycraft. I made the little sentiment circles on my computer before cutting them out with nesties and adding a star brad to the middle of each.

Kaboodle Doodles have 'add a little metal' so I hope my brads count even though they are painted ones! Stamps R Us have 'all male theme'- I hope this is blokey enough, my husband does not do girly!

Under the sea...

Now I have that song from Little Mermaid on the brain!

More playing with digi images- this time the lovely Emma the Mermaid from Fred She Said. I won this ages ago but, sadly, my smudging problems meant that I couldn't use her. No more, though, now I have the new laser printer!
The papers are a wonderful digi scrapping kit that I collected called 'To the sea' by Mommy Me Time Scrapper; re-sized and arranged for printing on Photoshop. ABC challenge have 'mainly blue' and Totally Gorjuss have 'aqua- the colour or watery theme'. The layout comes from Sketch Saturday but instead of covering up that lovely sanddollar strip with anything I made tiny starfish with a sizzlet die and dotted them with a white gel pen before putting them in the corners. What mermaid would be complete without a shiny tail? So I painted iridescent glitter glue over it- My Time to Craft have 'Glitter and Glitz'.

Rhinestone Cowgirl...

Now that our laser printer has come and my husband has networked it to my computer I can finally kiss goodbye to my smudging problems with digi images! I celebrated by having a big play with the images I have been collecting! First comes Cowgirl Ava from Pink Cat Studio. I have to confess to buying this digi paper set specially to make this card- it is called 'Rhinestone Cowgirl' by Scrappy Cat and is available at Stuff to Scrap- but I didn't break the bank because it was only $1 which is about 66p! I don't have a good selection of pink promarkers so had to make do with what I had, I think they match the papers reasonably well but I am such a perfectionist- lol. The sketch is from Friday Sketchers but I made an easel card because I just had to use that galloping horse paper.

Charisma Cardz and The Stamp Man both have easel cards as their challenge. JUGs have 'rodeo theme' in honour of Ethan, the little boy this set was made to commemorate. Pink Elephant have 'ribbon and sparkles' as their challenge and My time to Craft have 'glitter and glitz'- you can't see much of the pink grosgrain, but it is there, and I have used a gem to make a rhinestone belt buckle along with glitter on the ribbon of the hat and tiny star gems in the opposite corners. It is so unlike me to make such a pink and girly card and, although I have no idea who it will be for, I do like it!

Cards for Men DT card- Challenge 17...

This fortnight the challenge at Cards for Men is to make your card using Decoupage, so we really want to see that dimension. We are being sponsored by our wonderful team leader Donna this time, so here's a bit about her store:

"Donna's Den of Crafts is a family-run business where we aim to please. We stock a wide range of cardmaking and scrapbooking items from Dovecraft, Joanna Sheen, Crafter's Companion, Spellbinders.....to name but a few. Our prices are reasonable and p&p is only £1. Most in-stock orders are dispatched next working day. Why not pop along and take advantage of a 10% discount for the duration of this challenge. Just enter the code CFM0410 in your shopping basket."

As well as that fantastic discount Donna is giving a prize of a £10 gift voucher for our lucky winner!

I'm a stamper at heart so I decided to decoupage a stamped image of Rugby Hamish by Sugar Nellie. I stamped him out 4 times and drew on the kit of my son's Under 8s rugby team- Meltham All Blacks. So many rugby stamps have striped tops on so I love the fact this one is plain which allows me to really personalise it.

I coloured all my layers with promarkers but paid more attention to the one that I knew would show. I made my backing with Nesties and chalked it for a hint of sky and grass. I used 3 layers to make up the main image and after cutting them out I used a large ball tool on the back over an old mouse mat to give some gentle roundness to the pieces. I layered them up with 3D foam then just used the sweatband and collars from the last image which I attached with glue gel for a very slight lift.

These papers have been so useful for rugby cards! They are from a free download by Summertime Designs called Fangs for the Memories which is really for Halloween but has these great diamond papers. It also has the same paper in burgundy which works great with the yellow for Huddersfield Giants! Great papers for sports cards are so hard to find.

I am also entering this card for the challenge at Our Daily Bread which is to 'stamp it more than once'.

Cards for Men DT card- Challenge 16

This fortnight the challenge at Cards for Men is called 'Off on an Adventure'. Our sponsor is...

Squiggle Stamps carry a unique range of cute, quirky and whimsical stamps designed by a talented team of illustrators. Our images are available as both Rubber and Digital Stamps with new designs added regularly. We are lucky to have a wonderful Design Team and you can see all their fabulous creations and take part in monthly prize challenges on the blog at http://www.squigglestamps.blogspot.com/

The prize is a set of 5 digistamps and the DT were lucky enough to be given an image to play with- this is what I made with mine...

I didn't want to go with the classic pirate colours of black, white and red so was thrilled when I found this paper set among my digi downloads. The papers are from a set called 'Captain Christopher' which was a freebie download from RebeccaB Designs and I love the seaside colours of rich aqua and sandy beige and, of course, the skull and crossbones paper! I managed to find a pearlised beige cardstock and some blue of the right shade in my stash for matting with my nesties. The ship's wheel embellishment was in a pack of goodies that our team leader Donna sent me from her shop- Thank you hon!
I am entering this card into the Dutch Dare challenge and Paperplay as they both have 'anything goes!'. I'm also entering it for Totally Papercraft's challenge of 'At the movies' as Treasure Island (my son wanted Pirates of the Carribean but the colours and style are wrong!).

Happy Yorkshire Day!..

August 1st is the 25th Yorkshire Day so I thought I would share a little something that made me smile...

An American tourist comes to England to visit. He tours around the major cities and, being a great lover of cathedrals and churches, he visits many - starting in St. Pauls Cathedral in London. Whilst in there he is admiring the great architecture and amazing fittings when he notices a golden telephone behind the altar. He asks someone what the golden phone is...and gets the answer, "That's a direct line to God! But it costs 50 million British pounds to use it !"
Amazed, he snaps some photos, and moves on for his next visit.
In Lincoln Cathedral he is again loooking around at the majesty of the interior, when he sees another golden telephone behind the altar. Again, he asks someone what it is...."a direct line to God mate! But its 50 million British Pounds to use it!"
Again, amazed, he snaps some photos, and moves on for his next visit.
He visits great cathedrals and churches the length and breadth of Britain - Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol etc etc....and all have these golden phones behind the altar - £50million pounds a call.
Finally he arrives in Yorkshire and calls in York Cathedral. He is taking photos and taking it all in when he notices that there is a sign next to the golden phone which reads, "All calls 10pence".
Aghast, he asks the Vicar about it, "I have seen these golden phones in all the places I have visited, but they are £50million to call God...how come this one has that sign on it?"
The Vicar replies "This is Yorkshire lad...its a local call from here!"

Happy Yorkshire Day from God's own county!