Rocket birthday card Challenge Card

Today I have a card which is for two different challenges. Its for the waltzingmouse sketch challenge #61 and also the new monthly challenge over at Young Crafters Unite.
The sketch we had to work from is shown here:

 and the challenge for Young crafters unite was to colour a stamped image.

As soon as I saw the sketch I thought of a moon with a rocket, as I have an amazing set from Banana Frog called Retro Space which I have been looking for an opportunity to use.

So I stamped the main rocket onto some white card and coloured with my promarkers and cut out.

The moon is just a spellbinders circle die and then I used Antique linen distress ink to give it some shading and depth. I decided I wanted a little trail coming from the rocket, so I used my trusty waltzingmouse teeny trees stamps, stamped in versamark and then used my brand new cosmic shimmers on it!

Here you can also see the background paper which is just navy paper stamped with versamark stars.

 I wanted to add some stars that were colour matched to the rocket, and so using a tip from my friend Kirsty I just used my promarkers, coloured in some white card and then just cut the stars from the matching colours using my cuttlebug star dies!

The last few finishing touches were to use some green card, punched with a Dovecraft star punch all the way along, which I placed over some matching blue ribbon. I then ripped a star ikea napkin to layer onto. I also stamped the Happy birthday sentiment (Hero Arts) onto some plain white card, and because it looked a little plain I stamped some extra teeny trees stars over the top and added cosmic shimmers. I hope you like my take on both challenges!

Waltzingmouse blog waltz - Tea/Coffee

Welcome to this months blog waltz, where the theme is Tea or coffee. My two main bits of inspiration for this card were my Tea dye distress ink, and also a lovely set of stamps I have which include a tray of tea!

I started by stamping a lovely Lila Bug stamp by Kirsty Wiseman and coloured with promarkers, and then created a random leaf pattern using my teeny trees waltzingmouse stamps. I stamped my Lila bug again over the pattern so I could paper piece the dress onto my main Lila. I also stamped a tea table from another Kirsty Wiseman set called Come on Over, coloured with promarkers, and cut off the table legs to make a tray.

Next I took some doilies, for two of them I cut off the outer part to create a smaller version of the doily, and then inked up one with Forest moss distress ink, and the other with Tea Dye distress ink. I then layered them all up.

The background is the polka dot stamp from Waltzingmouse Offbeat Backgrounds, stamped onto cream card with the tea dye distress ink. I layered this onto some kraft paper, and made a little wavy edge banner to go across the front. The sentiment is from the Come on Over stamp set.

Here is Lila holding out her tea tray! I sponged gently around her dress with more forest moss.

I hope you like my tea inspired card! 

Pink Fairy birthday card

Today I'm showing a cute little card I made for a friends little girl. I have a few little girly stamps I picked up very cheaply in our local bargain shop and was looking to use them on a card for the first time. Having been inspired to use labels by the recent waltzingmouse sketch challenge I decided to go for a mini label! 

I stamped one of the fairies onto a mini label in memento black ink. I then waited while it dried (the mini labels are glossy and smudge easy, so I had to be patient!). I then coloured the fairy with promarkers and then used a Quickie glue pen and some super fine glitter to give her some bling.

I took some pink cardstock and using a Dovecraft star edge punch I punched out a line of stars. I then cut some shiny metallic paper to go behind this and cut a wavy edge into it. I also die cut a circle with a wavy edge in the pink cardstock. I have a little stash of ready to use sentiment circles printed off from a Kirsty Wiseman CD, and so I took the circle and punched a candle into it. I put a little scrap of the metallic paper behind the punched candle and then layered it up. Finally I used some background paper which I printed off from my Digital Scrapbook Artist (can't remember which digikit, sorry!). I will definitely use this fairy stamp again as its super cute when coloured!

Triple Embossed Wedding Card

Here I have made a wedding card for a friend getting married soon. I was excited to use my doodlebug wedding stamps which are amazing.

I couldn't decide which ones to use, so decided to do 6 small images in individual squares. I coloured each with promarkers and then triple embossed each little image. This took ages, and was really fiddly, and made me decide to order some Glossy Accents (its in the post!). It really does make it look much better though. I also cut some slightly bigger squares on my cuttlebug using my square dies and then embossed around the edge with some gold embossing powder. These were layered onto some burgundy paper which is almost like angel hair and has gold strands through it.

The background is a stamps away musical score stamp, I used a gold ink pad, which didn't stamp very well, but it was actually nicely subtle. The whole thing is layered onto to some burgundy paper which has a linen pattern. I chose this colour because its the wedding theme.

I'm using hubbies new camera for these, and its amazing to be able to get some close up shots!!!

My Monkeys 2nd birthday today!!

This time two years ago I was holding my beautiful little man for the first time! How quickly these two years have passed. He has brought so much joy into our lives and is becoming such a little character!
This morning they showed his birthday card on Channel 5 and he was so excited!! It was only for like 2 seconds but we have it recorded. (Cbeebies is much better, but I missed the 2 MONTH deadline for sending that in! I hadn't even thought about making his card 2 months ago!!!) Here's the card (Its A2 size for tv!)

We had an early birthday party last night as we're at a wedding today and it was lovely to have our local family around (we visited hubbies family last week). As monkey is currently obsessed with badgers (long story!), I made him a cake based on this one I saw online. I've watched a few sugar craft shows on create and craft, so had a little experiment and was pleased how my badgers came out.

I decided to paint them with black food tint as it was cheaper than buying the black icing (or trying to make my own!). I had bought a tube of black writing icing but it was awful and my test writing was horrendous, so I painted on the wording with the same tint.

Not perfect, but hey!
Here are some more pic of it!

I had some left over icing, so made some little cupcakes too.

I had some left over icing, so made some little cupcakes too.

 I hope you like it, it tasted delicious (vanilla sponge with raspberry jam and buttercream in the middle) and joey loved it!

Quick congratulations card

My friend recently got engaged, and I needed a very quick card. This has to be one of the quickest cards ever, but looks good.
I embossed the card with swiss dots, cut and embossed a labels 4 nestie, and before taking the card from the die I sponged some forest moss distress ink inside. This leaves a lovely crisp embossed outside. I stamped a banana frog sentiment in forest moss too, and finally added some ribbon, which was originally white and I used the same distress ink to colour it. Et voila!

Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge 58

Welcome to the weekly sketch challenge from waltzingmouse. Its great to get some inspiration from such challenges, as they often push you to try something new. Today's encouraged the use of a label which I really enjoyed. Here's the sketch:

I wanted to make use of a lovely tree stamp from Crafty Individuals, and stamped it onto a kraft luggage label in forest moss distress ink. I then used a sentiment from waltzingmouse Teeny trees in the same colour. For the background I used the same ink, and a My Minds Eye stamp from the set Wild Asparagus. Its a lovely leaf stamp which I plan to use much more. To make the colour more subtle I would stamp the image first onto some scrap paper, and then onto the cardstock (as Barbara from Clarity stamps puts it 'ink, blot, plot'!). 

I stamped lots of random leaf shapes and then gently sponged around all the edges before layering up onto a 6" ivory card. I was so pleased with the finished card that I decided to make another exactly the same, but simply changing the sentiment, and using pearlised lime green ink and a white label. 

The finished result looks completely different, but they're exactly the same!

Why not play along with the challenge yourself?

All you need is Love

I have a couple of extra cards which I have based around the anniversary card I made for my brother a few weeks ago. One is for a wedding card, and another for an engagement card, and all the basic elements are the same, but you can see what a difference a different colour palette and using embossing can make.

The first is an engagement card for a couple from church.

I decided not to go all white and thought black was more contemporary. I used my banana frog alphabet again (Budmo Jiggler), but this time I stamped with embossing ink and embossed with silver embossing powder onto black card. I used cuttlebug swiss dots to emboss some more black cardstock, and then layered these onto some spotty greytone paper I had. A little ribbon finished this off nicely, and was quick to make.

The second card is a wedding card for a friend.

I wanted to stick to more traditional whites and silvers for this, and used some lovely silver thread paper I have to layer onto. I again embossed the letters with silver embossing powder, embossed swiss dots onto some white card and finally made a small shrink plastic embellishment with the happy couples initials and the date of their wedding.

I love it when you find a card that is easy to make and so versitile!

Waltzingmouse Blog Waltz - Birthday Fun

Well today is the monthly Blog Waltz for Waltzingmouse stamps which I love!
This month is birthday themed, and I have loads of beautiful birthday stamps with candles, cakes, balloons etc...but not waltzingmouse ones, so I had to be a little creative!

The main bit of the card is the patchwork background which is various designs from the Off beat Background set. I wanted the stamp colour to compliment the cardstock, so they're lovely and subtle. I used tone on tone. I then realised I only had one birthday sentiment, and it said Birthday Wishes, but I wanted it to say Happy birthday, so this is where my nifty partial stamping came in handy! I got the Happy Thanksgiving stamp, and the Birthday Wishes stamp and only partially inked them up. This was quite easy for the happy, as I only inked the left side of the stamp. The birthday bit was trickier, as the wishes text is very close, but I used some post it notes to cover up that bit whilst I inked up.
Here is what the two individual stamps look like.

I usually like my sentiment central, and having decided to use my Labels 4 nestabilities I played around with it, but wanted to try and stamp on the label. It was then that I had the lightbulb moment of putting some candles on the label, and using the individual branch and leaf stamp from Teeny trees was able to make some pretty funky candles!!!

After layering up the nesties I simply put a faux stitch around the edge and voila!
I'm really pleased with how this turned out!

Contemporary Anniversary Card

Just thought I'd share a card for you I made for my brothers wedding anniversary. I wanted something that wasn't too flowery and a bit cool (he's a graphic designer, so has high standards!) and I settled on the idea of the square Love design based on the Robert Indiana painting here.

I used my Banana frog Budmo Jiggler alphabet to spell out the word, and Cracked Sapphire distress ink.

The background is just white card that has been embossed with a 'that special touch of' small polka dot mask and then I kept the mask in place and sponged with more distress inks. I gently sponged around the outside of both pieces and layered onto some navy card. Finally I made a tiny heart embellishment from shrink plastic which I simply cut into a heart shape and wrote the initials of my brother and sister in law on before shrinking. A bit of ribbon and we're done! Hope you like!

Waltzingmouse Sketch challenge 54

Good evening crafters. Today I had a birthday card to make for a friend. Its not her birthday for a couple of weeks, but I'm really busy over the next couple of weeks, and we're away before her birthday so I need to get it sorted sooner rather than later! I have used the waltzingmouse sketch challenge as my inspiration, and was hugely excited to use my new set of stamps which I won in the July blog waltz!! I chose offbeat backgrounds and have been dying to play with it! Heres the sketch.

I started by embossing the A5 ivory card with swiss dots. Because the embossing folder is only A6 I had to emboss from both sides, but I left a gap in the middle for the ribbon. I had to overlap on the wider side, and when I had done it the original embossed dots were flattened on the last row, so I had to put the embossing folder back around by hand and gently press them back out.

I decided to try my offbeat background dots to compliment the swiss dots. I tried to do it with my distress inks, but they didn't stamp too well. I love distress inks for sponging, but for larger areas of stamping they don't work great, I think its because they're so watery. So instead I used my whispers ink, and it stamped lovely in sage. I also used my cuttlebug and labels 4 nesties to make a little sentiment, and stamped with a sentiment from Teeny trees.

I used a wild asparagus stamp to give some extra texture to the sentiment in the same sage colour which looked nice.

I wanted to distress all the elements a little, so I sponged some tea dye distress ink around the edges, including all around the card edge and also onto some little flowers I had put together.

The final thing was to use some lovely sage ribbon to tie it all together! I hope she will like it!