Cards for Men DT card- Challenge 21...

Our challenge at Cards for Men this fortnight is to make a Birthday Card and ,of course, it must be for a man or boy!

I could not choose between these two colour schemes and sets of papers so I decided to make two cards using a similar layout. I think it shows the versatility of the stamp from Fresh Brewed designs. I have decoupaged the image on both cards because, for me, it was crying out for it! The sentiment comes from a Woodware clear set called Little Monster and was just perfect- I love the font. I put my Big Shot to good use for this card- first the Nestability circles, then the Sizzlet star die cuts, the star embossing on the blue background card and the much neglected Cuttlebug circles that I re-descovered for the sentiments on this card! The DP for the top card comes from a digi set called Play Ball by Christie at Stuff to Scrap and the DP for the bottom one is also a digi set from a blog train by LDS. I was lucky enough to find card to match in my stash and the scraps of Coredinations for the stars.

Sorry about the poor photos but I don't have time to re-take them as my son has been feeling poorly.

We are being sponsored by Fresh Brewed Designs this fortnight and Heather has kindly donated a free digi stamp for people entering and is offering 3 images of your choice for our lucky winner.

Here's a bit about our sponsor: "Hi. I am Heather Dennis. I am a homeschooling mother of 2 wonderful children, the wife of 12 years to the love of my life, a Christian and the owner of Fresh Brewed Designs. I have loved to draw and create ever since I was a child. My daughter has inherited my love of art and recently inspired me to start creating again.All the images in my shop are hand drawn. I offer a wide range of images from coffee, cute and inspirational.I also love to create custom drawn images, so if you are looking for anything in particular, please feel free to drop me an email."

I would also like to enter these cards into the following challenges:

• One Stitch at a Time- use your digis
• Craftalicious- anything goes
• Allsorts- inspired by a song- mine would have to be 'The Monster Mash'!
• Crazy4challenges- birthday
• Create4fun- digi stamp
• Mark's finest paper- stripes
• Stamp Something- punches and dies
• Penny's challenges- circles

Cards for Men DT card- Challenge 19...

Our challenge this fortnight is to make a card for a man or boy on the theme of transport and we are being sponsored by Peachy Keen Stamps who are giving not 1, but 2 stamp sets to our lucky winner!

Here's a bit about our sponsor: Peachy Keen Stamps is a family owned and operated leading clear stamp manufacturer based out of Northeast Wisconsin. Our stamps are made with the highest quality polymer on the market today, giving them their unique peach tint. The whimsical images designed by Kathy Jakopovich coupled with their durability make them a favorite amongst scrapbookers, card makers, and artists alike. These stamps are sold exclusively online at www.peachykeenstamps.com and at independent stamp and scrapbook stores worldwide. Please visit our website for a complete list of retail locations.

I decided to make a 'congratulations for passing your driving test card' using this Elzybells stamp that was from the large order of stamps that I just had to have before they close! The torn up 'L' plate and the sentiment both come from a Woodware clear set. The papers are from a Stuff to Scrap blog train called 'French Tulips'.

Your Next Stamp have 'anything goes' as their challenge,  Fab 'n 'Funky have 'what'eva!' and Paper Cutz have 'any theme, any colour' so I am entering this for all these. The Creative Cottage have 'celebrations'- what better reason to celebrate than passing your test! Stamp Something have 'spots and stripes' and this fits with my backing papers. Finally, Crafty Creations also have 'transportation' as their theme.

You are not The Stig!...

If you aren't from the UK this sentiment may not make much sense to you! The Stig is a mystery (or now not so mystery!) racing driver on a car show called Top Gear.

I made it as a 'congratulations on passing your driving test card' and I made the sentiment, which reads "You are NOT The Stig! Well done and take care!" myself on the computer. I wanted a trendy, grungy look for this card with a young driver in mind but I'm not totally happy with it- I prefer the other car card that I made today but I can't show you that yet!

I'm entering this card in the Allsorts Challenge of 'New Beginnings' as it is for a new driver and the Karber Challenge of 'a card for a boy' as this is aimed at a 17 or 18 year old.

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.

Singing in the rain...

My Time to Craft had 'Under my umbrella!' as their challenge so I dug out this Woodware clear set that I have not used for ages. I painted the image with a combination of watercolour pencils and pearlised watercolours, taking my colour pallette from the free download papers from Papercraft Inspirations. The layout comes from Friday Sketchers and was great for this card- giving me the perfect opportunity to use the umbrella charm.

Mummy-to-be card...

I'm really not sure if I like this card! It has taken quite a while coming together. I printed the front papers when I saw Colour Create's combo of pink, orange and green. They are a free download called 'Happy Mothers' Day' by Summertime Designs. But they have been sitting around for over a week because I was helping out at our Church Holiday club last week and, although we all had a fantastic time, I was too tired to craft in the evenings!

The design started to come together when I saw Friday Sketchers challenge. There were lots of curves which made me think of this Elzybells stamp, which I have had for ages but just not got around to inking up yet! I decided to follow this sketch and round the front of the card which meant I needed to go back to my DP and print a paper for the inside as it would show. About a week ago I persuaded my husband to answer loads of the things I wanted to do with Photoshop but couldn't and he even showed me some things I hadn't thought of! Refering back to my notes, I was able to lighten the pink by altering the opacity and overlay the flowers at the bottom and top corner before printing- I even impressed myself!

I had been thinking about Stamp Something's challenge to use a charm on your card- I don't have any charms! I decided to have a go at making one, so used a little bootie stamp from a Woodware clear set to stamp on shrink plastic. I used a hole punch to make the hole before cutting them out. I knew they were going to end up tiny because they were pretty small before I started but also because I checked them with my shrink plastic ruler (see end of post). They were so small that my heat gun kept blowing them away so I ended up heating them in a ramekin dish to keep them in one place! They are suspended from the mulberry flower by a fine silver thread as I do not have any jewellery making stuff.

Shrink Plastic Ruler.

I don't claim this as my own idea but can not remember where I heard it! Take an off cut of shrink plastic and, using a permanent pen, draw on a line with a ruler and mark off and number each centimeter. Shrink the 'ruler' and use it to give a guide of how small your shrinkies will end up. For example- Measure your stamp in cm. then find the same size on your 'ruler' to get an idea of their final size when shrunk. Sorry for the blurry photo but this is seriously small!

A Harry Potter birthday card...

I bought this Woodware 'Wizardry' clear set ages ago, it was something I really wanted at the time but when I got it I just was not inspired about how to use it! We went to see The Half-Blood Prince at the weekend and it got me thinking about this set!

Stampin' for the Weekend have masking as their challenge and I decided to try masking this set to make a scene. I used the Post-it note method which took a bit of thinking about! You have to stamp the foreground first then cover them with masks cut from stamped post-it notes to stamp objects behind. So I stamped and masked the cauldron and the yellow bottle, then stamped the other two bottles behind. Finally I added the wand and stamped the owl on a scrap to cut out. It has all been watercoloured with brushmarkers. The outside sentiment came from the same set and the inside one was a clear stamp I had made from a Potter type font.

The layout comes from the Pink Elephant sketch and was a nice clean one to work with. The papers are another of the fantastic free downloads from Summertime Designs. They come from the Happy Halloween set and I put them with Burgundy cardstock to give Gryffindor colours! The inside is actually a label design which is part of the download and just needed sizing, printing, stamping and cutting out!

Yellow and black- not colours I often put together!

Papertake Weekly have a take-your-pick colour combi as their challenge this week. I have been looking at the colour choices for a few days now and then it suddenly struck me- I made this card a couple of weeks ago to thank the man who has run a Multi-skills club at my son's school but not posted it before! It did not fit any challenges at the time and I was beginning to wonder if it ever would! I am entering this because it is YELLOW and BLACK.

I painted the Jolly Nation football boy with brushmarkers using the colours of the school PE kit, adding the school logo to the top! He is 3D over a chalked background, mounted with some textured yellow and some mirri embossed with stars. I then stamped some more yellow with the 'You're a star!' sentiment and the two stars from the Playtime clear stamp set from Woodware. The sentiment is from my ever-trusty Elzybells clear greetings.

Huddersfield Town FC cards.

I really needed some more cards in the colours of our local football team for my stash because they are always popular and I have run out. Colour Create have blue and green as their combo this week so it was the perfect opportunity to get some done. This stamp from Jolly Nation is great because the shirt is blank so I can make it into any colours I need- here I just drew in the vertical stripes with a fine, permanent pen before watercolouring it with brushmarkers. I prefer to use pens for this stamp because they give nice strong colours which suit the football strips.

I had fun using my VersaMark pad to make the background papers for this card. The blue has a football and stars repeated over it from a Woodware clear set and the green is a background with football words from Funstamps- although it is mostly covered up! I sponged toning ink around the edges of each.

Here are my cards all together. The figures have been cut out and attached with 3D foam over a chalked background. The sentiment is Imaginisce and I added the little football in the middle myself.

Finally, I am still keeping up putting a little decoration inside; not as fancy as many of you ladies, but I like it!

Don't know if you can see from the photos but the miri has an embossed star design in it and the base card has a 'cord' texture to it.

Right, now I need to do some rugby cards in Giants colours!!

A girly birthday card.

One of my colleagues at work asked me to make a card for her daughter's birthday. I followed sketch #8 on Stamps and Smiles but extended it because she wanted an A5 card. It was a great sketch to work with and one that could look very different depending on the image/papers. The brief was 'girly' and it had to have on her name and age. I used a really useful alphabet set which, I think, is by Do-craft for this then embossed the other two panels with the Bloom Dots folder.

ABC challenge was 'G is for glitter'. The image is partially painted with sparkly watercolours. I made my own glittery brads by using a glue pen on the head then dipping them in glitter. The fibre down the fold has silver tinsel pieces in it (I say 'fibre' but this is actually from a ball of wool which I got 2 for £1 from the pound shop- bargain!).

I was making this card quite late last night because I had had a poorly son who was not at school yesterday. He is better today than yesterday but I have kept him home again because he really didn't want to eat yesterday so was still looking a bit pale and wobbly this morning. Breakfast and lunch later he is now looking much more like his usual self but better to be safe than sorry!

4 Challenges in one card!

I did not set out to do 4 challenges in one- it just worked out that way! I often need time to mull over challenges before I know what I'm going to make. When I first looked at Colour Create #8 on Sunday (navy,turquoise & lime) it did not immediately spark any ideas. Then on Monday I saw that the theme on Cupcake Craft was 'Monsters' and I remembered my Woodware Clear set 'Little Monster' and the mojo began to flow! I then looked at Creative Inspiration and their theme was 'Humorous' and I thought of the sentiments in this set. Finally I had the images stamped and coloured and the Core'dinations chosen and I thought I would look for an old sketch to prod the creativity- forgetting that I had not seen this week's PTW because it was not up when I looked before- and *bang* I was suddenly up to 4 challenges!

Colour Create had the extra option of 'no designer papers'- this was good for me because I don't have any in these colours *lol*. The turquoise is embossed with Cuttlebug's 'spots and dots' and sanded, the navy has a debossed dot border from 'With Love' and I have stamped monster feet from the set up the side of the card. I have to say I am really pleased with how this card has turned out and my son said, "Wow Mum that is so funny, can I have it?" when he saw it this morning!

Mother's Day cards.

There were things I liked about my last card and things I struggled with. I don't usually put so much on my cards! I made these to take into work and am much more pleased with them. The strip across the card has been embossed with the flower border from the Cuttlebug 'With Love' borders. The card base is made from pearlised card. The images and papers are the same as before. The sentiment comes from a Woodware clear set called 'Family Christmas'. Hope they like them at school!

"You Passed" card.

I have a box of cards at the school where I teach part-time and there has been a test congratulations card in there for ages. Suddenly, last week, it sold and someone else asked where it was because she wanted to buy it too! Typical!

I managed to restock on pearlised paper to print onto at Holmfirth Mill and was really pleased because it can be hit and miss there and I had almost run out. The paper was printed from a Crafter's Companion CD that I got as a Christmas present and the red is also from the mill shop pay-per-box. The image and sentiment are from a Woodware clear set that I have had for ages and I water coloured it using Whispers pens scribbled onto an acrylic block and painted on. I particularly like to do this when using black because it gives a less solid colour so you can still see the detail of the stamp. The bumper and wing mirrors have been coloured with a silver gel pen. I followed a sketch on Mojo Monday week 77. Sorry the photo isn't very good, I had to take it in the early evening and the light was going.

Cute Card Thursday- Challenge 49.

The challenge was to make a card with an animal on- I hope this cuddly giraffe counts! I kept this card very simple because the base card is a beautifully textured buttermilk yellow- which does not really show up on the photo :( The mats are flat to the card but the image is on 3D foam to add a bit of interest.