Oops- a 'belated' card...

Trying to keep up with posting my cards in challenges again. This one is made with a Sugar Nellie rubber stamp called 'Blossom' and coloured with my Promarkers. The sentiment is from Elzybells. All the papers are from a digiscrap freebie by Shabby Princess called 'Festival'. As you can see it is an easel card.

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

• Allsorts- say it with flowers
• Cupcake- Going dotty
• Hooked on Crafts- more than one fold
• Make it Monday- anything goes

Rockpool Fun...

I really enjoyed making this today! I bought the gingham papers from Pink Petticoat a week ago as I just love their fresh, clean look. The download includes plain papers to so I didn't have to search for matching card for the mats. The image is an old one from Sugar Nellie, which I think they have retired now. I have been admiring the bunting trend for a while now and have finally got myself a die. This is the Banner die from MTF Die-namics which I got from my friend Kitty's shop, My Mum's Craft Shop. I used this layout a few weeks ago for my dinosaur cards and liked it so much I decided to use it again for this. I decided to frame the image and sentiment with faux stitching rather than mat it to keep the look simpler. The card has been finished off with a couple of Card Candi.

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

• CRAFT- Happy Birthday
• Allsorts- photo inspiration of children on the beach
• Totally Gorjuss- water
• Challenge up your life- recycling (the narrow white ribbon that I have used to string the bunting was off the label on my new pyjamas!)

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'.

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.

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!!!

Giants!!! Giants!!!

In explanation of the title of this post, the Giants are Huddersfield's rugby league team and, surprisingly, since moving up here I have become quite a fan.
This card is for my son's friend. In a couple of weeks I am taking them both to the Crusaders game. Love this Sugar Nellie image because I can draw on any strip I want. I'm entering this card into two challenges- Passion for Promarkers 'Your favourite things' because as I mentioned I'm rather a rugby fan now and Charisma Cardz 'One for the boys'. Must go now because I'm off to Wales to visit Mum and Dad for Dad's 80th birthday- I'll try to post his card next week.

A Thank You for my fab classroom assistant...

When I got asked to take on a class full time in September I truly hit the ground running! The room was a shell as the previous teacher had vacated it and with the new teacher falling ill none of the usual preparations had been done. Diane, my classroom assistant, was an absolute star. She prepared all the books and folders, labelled drawers and helped me to get displays up. During the year she has done alsorts of things to make life run smoothly. This card is for her to thank her for all she did now that the other teacher has returned and I have left that class.
Creative Card Crew have 'thank you cards' as their theme so I am entering this card.

Another Fishing card...

I make quite a lot of male cards and I do seem to do quite a lot of fishing cards! In fact it rather surprised me how many fishing related stamps I have! This one is new and came in a mystery grab bag of Sugar Nellie stamps- there were actually 2 different fishing stamps in the 2 grab bags I ordered-How did they know? Spooky!!
This card is for my husband's friend's birthday. He has just been to stay with him in Kent where they went fishing on a couple of the days. I bought a tube of suncream specially for his fishing bag but he only thinks to use it if he can feel himself burning! Obviously, it is too late by then so he has returned with a very red face and is now peeling- apparently his friend is as bad- men, when will they learn?!
I followed the sketch at Papertake Weekly for this card. I had trouble deciding on the papers to use, but once I had decided to make the panel textured brown and mat onto dark brown it started to come together.

I love this word stamp from Elzybells- She must know a fisherman to have created this!

Crafts and Me have 'Friends and Family' as their challenge and ask us to make a card for a family member or good friend. Tanda Teaser have male cards as their challenge so I am also entering this here.

I found both these challenges on a new blog called Challenge Mania which aims to give a brief round up of lots of challenges. Thanks Ann for setting this up, I can strongly recommend a look to see if you can find any more challenges for your card or find a new challenge to try.

I love this paper!...

I made this card for a lady in my church housegroup. I was really drawn to this free download paper called 'Festival' from Shabby Princess so I based my colours on it and also chose my stamp because of the dots on the dress. The layout is from the Sugar Bowl sketch, but as it is now optional I did not follow the colours. This card also sort of fits Pink Elephant's challenge of 'Red, scallops and a bow'. Red is an accent colour on this card, the scallops are on the hem of her dress and the bar to support the easel and there are ribbon loops on the tag- I'm rubbish at bows so I rarely put them on my cards!

Tuesday Taggers have 'All that Blooms', Charisma Cards have 'flowers' and Spoon Full of Sugar have 'floral delights'. This image has 7 flowers on it so I am also entering my card for these challenges.

Edited to add- oops! Missed the close of Charisma Cardz- Drat!!

Karate Kid!

This card has been made using the sketch at Charisma Cards this week. Cupcake Craft asked us to use either digi papers or images- all the DP for this card are from the lovely free download 'A year to shine' by Summer Driggs. 'Teen Terrors' was the challenge at Cute Card Thursday- I thought this image by Sugar Nellie would work for a teenager and that the star could have silver peel off numbers in it if needed.

Inspired by some fab free download papers!

I don't remember where I found the link to this fabulous blog, sorry, but you have to have a look at these fabulous free downloads by Summer Driggs at Summertime Designs, they are just gorgeous and she has provided them all free for personal use- Thank you for sharing these fantastic designs Summer.

I have downloaded lots of sets but was particularly drawn to this Limeade set because they are colours that I would not normally use but look fantastic together on these papers. Now I am no IT expert and my husband gets sick of sorting out things related to cardmaking! But where there's a will there's a way, so I set about trying to work out how to size the quilt paper perfectly for the front of the card- I used Photoshop and changed the image size to 14.5cm and printed! I have to admit I was quite pleased with myself and can just hear him saying 'see you can do it if you just have a go'!

I decided to follow Secret Crafter's Saturday Challenge recipe which was: 3 buttons, 2 design papers and 1 ribbon. I knew I had this black spotty grosgrain ribbon in my stash which was perfect but I thought I would struggle to find suitable buttons. Could not believe my luck when I came across these fab buttons in just the perfect colour in a sample pack from an old goodie bag! I decided to stitch them on because I did not want to see any glue with them being see through- don't tell the family, you can wait an age to have a button sewn on in this house normally!

I used black as a card base so needed to line the inside to give me somewhere to write. I had used 2 design papers on the front so I used a piece of pearlised white paper and stamped the edges to create a border.

Butterfly wings- and a pigeon!

I love this paper so much, and had printed off more than I needed for my last card, so I decided to use it again today. The paper is a free download from Raspberry Road and as Stamp Something had 'bugs, butterflies and other winged somethings' as their theme I started with the gorgeous butterfly paper. The image is a Gorjuss Girl from Sugar Nellie and I think you can just tell from the picture that she is cut out and popped on 3D foam, with her hands and the bird stuck flat.

I rotated the 'X on a sketch' layout from ABC and put it together, using mainly offcuts from the last card along with some ribbon and jewels from my stash.

It is a lovely sunny day here so I took this out to take the photograph. I use a mini tripod and the timer setting on my camera to avoid camera shake, however, a breeze got up as I had set the timer and my first photo was of the easel only!

Another 'Dancing Maggie' card!

After making Mary's retirement card I could not help myself from using this lovely Sugar Nellie stamp again! While finding the papers for my last card I also printed these out. They are a free download from Raspberry Road Designs and are great for this stamp because most sets include at least one tartan!

Pink Elephant have red, light blue and darker blue as their challenge this week and I am entering this even though my red is rather orangey! Hope I'm still allowed!

Cupcake Craft Challenges have 'blossoms and butterflies' as their theme. The large butterfly is cut from some of the paper I printed out and I can't believe the camera has actually picked up the sparkle I added with a stardust pen! The tiny flowers and the butterflies inside are made with punches. It has been a feature of my cards for a while now that I add a little stamped element to the back of my envelope if I have anything suitable. I was having a clear plate made up a while ago so I added lots of tiny stamps taken from dings to fill in any spaces- waste not want not! This butterfly is one of those.

I followed the sketch on Friday Sketchers for this card, drawing around a side plate for my circle!

Stampin' for the Weekend had some song titles for inspiration this week. I chose 'Tangled up in Blue' for this card because it fits nicely with my colour scheme.

This card is now on its way to my dear friend Helen who I've known since college and had to leave in Kent when we moved to Yorkshire. Happy Birthday Helen! Hope it gets there on time!

Scottish dancing retirement card.

I have been at the school where I work part time for four years now and it will be all-change next year because two of the three teachers that I work with are retiring. When I saw this stamp I had to have it for Mary's card- even though she has lived in Huddersfield for years now she is still a strong Scot and enjoys Scottish dancing which we had great fun trying to teach the children once! The place won't be the same without her.

I have never played along with The Sugar Bowl challenge before because I have only just bought my first four Sugar Nellies, but I have been dying to get the chance because I have been really busy with school stuff since I got them! I finished school on Wednesday with being part time so was able to have my first real crafting session in ages and this is what I made from the sketch with the 'please include' of ribbons and/or bows.

The design papers are all from a free download by Raspberry Road Designs. I paper pieced the kilt then coloured the rest of her with brushmarkers. The sentiment is made from my favourite Elzybells clear set which covers so many occasions!

Two 'Pirate Monkey' birthday cards.

Another of my new Sugar Nellies. Love this little chap but had a few false starts colouring him for the first time. I started with my Prismas and Sansodor but there was only black in my 24 set and it came out a bit too dark. Went on to watercolour pencils but the grey I had was rather too bluey, so that would not do either! Finally I used my Whispers brushmarkers and washed on the diluted black with a paintbrush then added the darker shading. I was aiming for the sort of look 'Me to You' bears have and I'm fairly happy with what I ended up with eventually!

Both cards are made with free download papers from Raspberry Road Designs from their 'My Baby Love' boy and girl collections. They have a lovely knitted or textile look which is just what I wanted. I doodled the faux stitching around the image and added the buttons to finish off the whole textile look.

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge has the theme of 'In the Jungle'. They want to see animals found in the jungle on our cards- a monkey is perfect for this, but he probably wouldn't need his jumper!

I'm back- with a 'sorry' card!

Sorry to have been away from blogging for so long! After my nightmare week I took my son to Wales for half term to stay with Mum and Dad. We had a lovely time, even though the weather was quite changeable and ate far too many ice creams. On getting back I had about a week of being so tired- just about enough energy to crash in front of the TV, but not to craft. When I got my energy back I had to face writing my reports. Because I work part-time it isn't a full set, but nevertheless it still hangs over me until it is done. I finished them on Tuesday and handed them in on Wednesday so I was determined that I would reward myself with a craft day today!I have a confession to make- I missed my cousin's daughter's birthday by absolutely loads; somehow I didn't transfer it to my new calender and only realised when I saw it on Mum's! I was already badly late with it so I thought it would be better to wait until I had time to make a special card rather than run out and buy one.

I had treated myself to some papers when ArtyMiss had a free postage weekend and had also finally got myself some Sugar Nellies so I decided to use my new stash. I followed Colour Create's blush pink,lilac and mossy green colour scheme for this card which worked perfectly for this K and Company paper. They had 'die cuts' as their extra option so I used my large sizzix originals scallop envelope to make a double sentiment- 'sorry' on the flap and 'belated birthday wishes' on the hidden card, using my ever versatile Elzybells clear sentiments set. Embarrassed and grovelling? YES! I embossed everything except the flap with my paisley folder and used a Brilliance pad to pick this up and for the front sentiment.

I am going to send some money in this card so I created a pocket inside using some card from my stash, decorative scissors, a white gel pen and a TINY sliver of paper which I had left from the front! Finally, I punched out a few flowers for the other side. (I want to hand write the message so I wanted to leave it fairly uncluttered.) Dutch Dare have 'decorate the inside of your card' as their theme so I am entering this card.

Edited to add: Oh dear- just went to post this on Dutch Dare and realised I had looked at last week's challenge- DOH!