More gingham, for Denami

I've made this card specifically for this month's Denami challenge - but I think I might have missed the cut off time by just a couple of minutes!  Rats!  Oh, well, here's the card, which I will also submit for the Gingham challenge at Moxie Fab World.

Fathers day

There are a few challenges online this week to do with Fathers Day - but, here in Australia, Fathers Day is not until September!  Oh, well, there's nothing wrong with getting in a bit early :)

I wanted to use my gingham background stamp from Annabelle Stamps (for Moxie Fab's Gingham challenge) on a masculine card (for CASual Friday's challenge) - you usually see gingham on bright, happy cards, and on baby cards, but not so much on cards for men.  The great thing about a gingham stamp is I can choose what colour to use - I went with clear embossed Versamark for this card.  I also used my brand new tree die from Memory Box - I'll have to have a play around with shims for this die - it didn't cut as neatly as I would like the first time through.  I sponged the edges of the tree with Walnut Stain Distress ink to give it a bit more dimension. The patterned paper is from Basic Grey's Oxford collection.

 I hope you're having a great day :)

Hello, handsome!

I had a bit of watercolour cardstock left over from a previous card, where I'd stamped Hero Arts Lattice background and white embossed.  I decided to sweep some Distress inks across it fairly randomly (including the brand new seasonal Distress Ink Peacock Feathers that arrived from Simon Says Stamp just the other day - hooray!) and spritzed with some water and perfect pearls.  I then pulled out my new Hero Arts "Year round sentiments" clear set, and it came together from there.  

This card will be submitted to three challenges - LilyPad Cards Star Challenge, Lawnscaping Embossing challenge and Simon Says Stamp Father's Day/Special Male Challenge :-)

Using up some leftovers for a couple of challenges

After making Dad's birthday card (which you can see here), I had some random blue die cut letters left over.  Well, waste not, want not - I put them to good use in this baby card :)
The background is embossed with swiss dots embossing folder.  "Love" is handwritten. A card without ANY stamping!!  A bit odd for me!!  
I followed the sketch for the current Card Patterns Sketch, and used the Play Date Cafe's Colour scheme of  Baby Blue, Denim and Cherry.  I'll also submit this card to Moxie Fab World's Gingham Challenge.

Moxie Fab - Man-tastic!

This week's Moxie Fab Trigger Target is called "Man-tastic" - which is great, because I always need a bit of a nudge to make a male card.  I recently bought a Hero Arts background called "Lattice", and I thought it would fit this Tuesday Trigger well.  Add a few Copics, some hemp twine and a splodge of glossy accents to hold the knot in place, and there you have it.

This is my 4th card for today - and, yes, I made them all this afternoon - can you tell I've missed my craft desk (and blogging, and challenges) for the last few weeks?? Glad to be back :)

Happy birthday Miss 10!

Here's a card I made today for my Mum to give to my eldest niece, Lauren.   Just like the card I made for Samantha (see previous post), the star is popped up on an "action wobble spring" - so it wobbles ;)

I'll be submitting this to LilyPad Cards for their Simon Says Stamp Presents a Star Challenge, and to Clean and Simple's FTL 192.

Happy birthday Miss 6

As I mentioned in my last post, 2 of my 3 nieces have their birthdays in the coming week.  I made their cards weeks ago, but my Mum asked me today to make a couple of cards for her to give to each of them - here's Miss 6's card :)

The circle with the 6 on it is popped up on an "action wobble spring" - so it wobbles!! 

I *sort of* used this week's Clean and Simple sketch - I just rotated it into portrait from landscape ;)

Happy birthday, Dad

This week, I have SOOOO many birthdays coming up - I'm surrounded by Geminis!  My Dad's birthday is on Monday, so our family is getting together tomorrow to celebrate his birthday, as well as the birthdays of Lauren (10 year old niece) and Samantha (6 year old niece).  I've already posted the girls' cards on my blog AGES ago, but I've just made Dad's today - here 'tis :)

     Sorry for the fuzzy photos - it is very grey and overcast today, so lighting is not so good.  Melbourne had it's coldest May day in 17 years yesterday - and today's not much warmer - we got to a grand total of 10 degrees C yesterday (felt like 1 degree with the wind chill factor), and it was a very wet, windy, miserable day :(  But, it was the last day of teaching for semester 1 at the Uni, so I will have some time for cardmaking instead of marking pracs and assignments for a few weeks! Hooray!
     My inspiration for this card was a card that won the CASual Fridays challenge last week, by Pamela - you can see her fantastic card HERE.  Her card used numbers, but I went with letters - it was fantastic timing, as my order from Simon Says Stamp arrived in the mail this week, with my new Die-namics "By the Letters" die set :)
     The paper behind the die cut "dad" is from a Basic Grey paper pad called "Lime Rickey" - you can't really see much of the pattern, though - it's one of those mostly plain, but slightly distressed papers that Basic Grey includes in most of their paper packs.  Will be submitting this to CASual Fridays challenge - which is a bit odd, seeing as my card is a CASE of last week's winner!
 

Have a great day :)

Another Mothers Day card....

I bought theses Hambo stamps last year - and they arrived in the mail the week after Mothers Day!  Grrr!   This year, I completely forgot about them until today - the day AFTER Mothers Day!  D'oh!   Oh, well, my mum just got an extra card today ;)

And inside the card............!!

Will be submitting this to Annabelle Stamps Stitching challenge :)

Annabelle's & Lawnscaping challenge

This week's Annabelle Stamps challenge is to"Say it with Stitching"! This is my kind of challenge - I rarely make a card without stitching! (Faux stitching, that is - getting out the sewing machine seems like hard work!).  I had a tiny little offcut left over from this card in my previous post, so I thought I'd put it to good use, and make a new card :)  This week's Lawnscaping Challenge is Clean and Simple - I usually think of clean and simple cards as having lots of white space - well, this card has lots of black space instead!

Have a great day :)

Happy mothers day

I saw this card from Jennifer McGuire yesterday, and I knew that I had to give it a go!  I don't have the Distress Markers (yet) so I used my Tombow markers - they gave a great result, but they don't seem to move and play in water as much as Distress inks do. 

 I stamped and white embossed the Hero Arts / Studio Calico Lattice Background stamp, and then coloured in all the spaces with my Tombows.  

 I sprayed the background with Perfect Pearls in water - so the whole card shimmers!  The black pearls are just white pearls coloured in with a black Copic marker.  The sentiment is from Stampin' Up.

Happy Mothers Day to all the lovely mums out there :)

Thomas is 2!

My little nephew, Thomas, turned 2 yesterday!  Yay!  I made a card for him ages ago, but I changed my mind and made him another one instead!  Almost everything on this card - the paper, the cardstock, the stamp, the die for the "2" on the inside - is from Stampin' Up.  I used Copics to colour the owl, and Stickles on his belly :)

 And, on the inside:

 CAS-ual Fridays has a birthday challenge this week - drop in and check it out ;)