Rudolph Day - March

Here's a card for a Rudolph Day challenge on Auntys forum, I plan on getting a nice stash of christmas cards ready this year instead of having a mad rush in December...

This month Kathy had a recipe for us, christmas image, patterned paper, ribbon and glitter.
This little cutie is called 'candy ski' and is from The Paper Shelter.
The pastel blue snowflake paper is by Echo Park, from their paper pack 'all I want for christmas'.

As I type this, it is snowing outside, and i've had enough of this cold snowy weather now, it's time for some Spring sunshine please, I'll happily make cards with a snowy theme but I really don't need Mother Nature to give me any inspiration thanks!

I'd like to enter this card at:
The Paper Shelter - anything goes
CCAYR - sparkle and bling
Sweet Stampin - lots of layers

Just had to buy...

A few days ago I came across this card on Viv's blog and instantly fell in love, not only with the image
( I already own the stamp set, it's called summer by the sea by Stampin Up) but also the stunning way the image was framed.
So an impromptu purchase was made as soon as I found out the die's name (Thanks Viv).
If you are also wondering what the die set is called, it's Leane 005 Frame Curve by Lea'bilities and this is the largest in the set...

The image is called 'Blossoms' and is from Beccy's Place. I printed it out 3 times, coloured it using promarkers and cut out and layered it up. Finishing with a couple of ivory flatback pearls to the 2 largest flowers.
The sentiment was computer generated and punched out using SU's word window punch.
The beautiful green floral backing paper was sitting in my drawer shouting to be used, I cannot for the life of me remember where I got it from, but there's a good chance it's a craft mag freebie, if anyone knows, please let me know, thanks, I have a few more sheets of it and would like to know who it's by incase I need to buy more.

UPDATE: Thanks to Faye, I now know that the paper is by Fancy Pants, from the Beach Babe collection, this sheet is called 'sand dollar'... Thank you Faye! xx

The cream coloured spotty paper beneath the image and inside the card is from my Kanban Male Backgrounds CD, I altered the colour to one of the designs to get this pale shade before printing it out.

I'm loving this card! I shall give it to my friend next month for her birthday, we've known each other for 36yrs this year, we lived in the same street as kids, then years later we both moved back into the estate, and she is my neighbour once again, with us both living in the street next to the one where we grew up in.

I'd like to enter this card at:
Beccy's Place - march challenge
Scrappy Frogs - green
The Pink Elephant - green
Papertake Weekly - 1,2,3 (1 sentiment, 2 pearls, 3 layers of flowers)
Cute Card Thursday - anything goes (Happy Birthday CCT)
Wags n Whiskers - go green
ABC challenge - J for just as you like (anything goes)


update 20.03.13 - Thank you Ella & the DT xx

Funny Face

It's safe to show this now :)
As soon as I saw this fun image I knew I had to have it, and exactly who I was going to make a card for with it (Happy Birthday Fluff xx)

This totally brill image is by Redonkulous Designs, and is called 'Funny Face', isn't she just fabulous?!
I coloured her with promarkers and carefully cut her out, framing her using my newest dies by cArt-Us.
The cupcakes are from SU's crazy for cupcakes stamp set. And we all know how much Fluff loves her cupcakes don't we?
The starry paper is by Paper Cellar and is from a pad called 'celebrations' which I bought when I first started card making, it's a little bit of a crazy design, which suits the image and the die cut (sizzix) sentiment, the other sentiment is computer generated. I used another cArt-Us die beneath it, adding a few gems to finish.

I'd like to enter this card at:
Stamptacular Sunday - to DIE for
Crafty Bloggers Network - spring or pastel
Shopping Our Stash - funny, humorous, sassy or snarky
Digital Tuesday - frame it


Thanks for stopping by today xx

Easter Egg Bunny Box

This easter egg bunny box is my own design, and is a quick 10 minute make.
I printed the sheet out, then cut out the design, scored it, and built up the decoupage bunny, then glued the tabs to each side to create this cute little treat box. It's just the right size to fit a small fondant creme egg.

I'll add a name tag to it before giving it out.

I'd like to enter the challenges at:
Crafty Bloggers Network - spring or pastel
Bearly Mine - Easter
The Paper Shelter - Easter
Craft Us Crazy - Anything but a card


update 19.03.13 - Woohoooooo! Thank you Bearly Mine Challenges xx

360

This is my version of a xbox 360, I drew a picture of my sons machine and controller, then followed the sketch i'd made to recreate it (similar but not identical) on the pc, adding a background too. The result is a topper sheet which created this card...

When I design toppers I try look into how easy (or not) the design will be to cut out and layer up.
I like to make sure that my designs are manageable for crafters with poor manual dexterity too.
This topper comes together quickly and easily :)

I'd like to enter this card at:
Crafty Cardmakers - masculine birthday featuring technology or a gadget

Male birthdays

Not a favourite of card makers are they? It's so much easier to add flowers, bows and glitter to cards instead. Well I suppose you can still add all those to male cards too if the recipient likes those things.

March is always a busy month for me, it kicks off with my own birthday on the 1st, I get to celebrate and relax before the mass of papers, pens and embellishments come out to clutter my desk for the rest of the month. The cards I need to make throughout March are mainly for men, lots of family and friends birthdays. March does also have mothers day and my parents anniversary, and a couple of female birthdays too, so I do get to go girly too. Told you March was busy for me. Come to think of it, April is quite busy too.
Anyway, here's another male card...

This card uses an image by DigiStamp Boutique, it's called Alf and beer, coloured with promarkers.
The papers are from a free pad sent with a craft magazine, the pad is by We R Memory Keepers.

I'd like to enter this card at:
DigiStamp Boutique - March Customer Challenge.
Sweet Stampin - Males

Using old stash

I haven't used this lovely Ronnie Relaxing image from Pollycraft for ages, and decided to give it an airing for this card. I seem to be having a Pollycraft phase at the moment, i've been using lots recently, and it was while browsing that I came across Ronnie and thought how lovely it would be to use him again, I have altered him very slightly though, I flipped the image and removed the patch around the eye...

The papers are from my scraps drawer, and are years old. I think the stripey one is by Dovecraft (not sure tbh), the other is by Sizzix. I punched the papers with a woodware punch then punched plain pale blue cardstock with a very slightly bigger dovecraft punch to get the slight border around the papers. I also used a fiskars punch to round off the corners of the card, a little star punch to embellish, and the SU word window punch on the sentiment which is also by SU.

I'd like to enter this card at:
PTW - anything goes
Paper Shelter - at least 2 punches
Craft Us Crazy - anything goes
Little Miss Muffet - Boys Only
Totally papercrafts - punch it
Sweet Stampin - Males

Good Luck Ian

Ian is a lad at work, he's leaving the pub kitchen to become a prison officer.
Now I wanted to make Ian a good luck card, but had no idea what to do, so after a while thinking about it, I decided to just stick with the sentiment as the main focus and took myself off to my paint program to create it, with a detour via google to find the crown image seen on prison signs.
This is what I came up with...

I printed it out, stuck it to some silver mirror card, added 4 silver eyelets and a silver handcuffs charm threaded with navy ribbon. Job done. Hope he likes it.

UPDATE 18.03.13 - 
Thanks to the cupcakes for choosing my card :) xx

I'd like to enter this card at:
Craft Us Crazy - anything goes
Creative Card Crew - ribbon
Here Come The Boys - NO stamps allowed
Cupcake - It's only words